


Night Shift

by SapceY



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Car Chases, F/M, Random NFS game references, Street Racing, undercover cop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25001674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapceY/pseuds/SapceY
Summary: As street racing gets more attention in Zootopia, the officers have more and more problems to deal with after each day. With no progress made and more racers on the streets, they need to search for other ways to shut down the crews, even if it means going undercover and infiltrate with the racing world.
Relationships: Judy Hopps/Nick Wilde
Comments: 28
Kudos: 17





	1. A (not so) great plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm SapceY, I'm the author of Night shift. Make sure you do all the races in your imagination. On the streets, drive safely and responsibly and wear you seatbelt!

“So what do you think, what new thing is our fault now?” Nick asked in a careless tone to Judy, while sitting in Bogo’s office and waiting for the Buffalo to probably shout their head off.  


“Honestly...” Judy shared her thinking process. “I’m jumping between the ‘I don’t know’ and ‘Everything’ conclusions. Might be the ‘Gond’ twins?”  


“We caught them!” Nick protested. “Besides, let him do the dirty work if he wants no collateral damage. We had a chance, we took it!”  


“You call a wounded civilian ‘Collateral damage?’” Judy looked at her partner in disbelief. “What if it was you?”  


“Well… I’d hate my horrible luck for that, and not the hard working police officers who risk their life every day just so the Gond twins would finally get off the streets.”  


“You know... If I had a time machine, I would use it only to ask the same question from your 20 year old self. I’m curious, what would he say?”  


“First of all, it would be a horrible waste of a time machine. Second… Hmmm good question. He would probably...” But he couldn’t finish his sentence as the door opened behind them and a huge shadow appeared, signaling the Chief’s presence. “Hehey!” Nick cheered after turning around. ”Go on, boss, tell us what we failed to accomplish, so we can finally get back to our thrilling paperwork. You get to say 20 of our negative traits, OR if you are in a daring mood, you can add a few curse words of your choice!”  


“Cut it out Wilde!” Bogo said in neutral, yet still somehow irritated tone and walked to his desk ”Believe it or not, I didn’t ask you to come here for that matter, even though the stunt you’ve pulled with the Gond twins endangered multiple civilians and one got wounded. But, as I said, it’s not why you are here right now.”  


Now both Judy and Nick became a bit more curious. It was the first time they weren’t called in to receive their daily dose of angry Bogo.  


“I think you both know our situation with the street racers that have been going on for a few months now. More and more ‘Crews’ form and it’s getting out of paws. We arrest one hotshot, 3 more takes its place.”  


They both knew what Bogo was talking about. These adrenalin junkies caused more problem than any of the crime organisations combined. The phone lines were full of reported racers all around Zootopia, and it was nearly impossible to catch them, or in case they did manage to stop a racer it was some scared newbie, that they had to let go with a warning and a ticket.  


“Now… based on my observations.” Bogo continued “There are 3 main crews running the business on the streets. The Night Dragons, the Quick Shifters and The Blacklisters. If we could somehow manage to catch them all, the whole race fever would finally come to an end, because they are the main reason anyone is interested in this ‘hobby’. For that… We need the crews together in one place at one time.“  


“So, if I get this right, we need someone who could report back to the police station with the exact location of the crews...” Nick said, not knowing where this conversation was going.  


“Exactly. So I want one of you… to go undercover. Unfortunately Miss Hopps is probably more known. During the nighthowler case she was in the middle of the spotlight, she was on the television all the time, and I wouldn’t like to risk her getting recognised.”  


“Let me get this straight. You want me to infiltrate with the crews?” Nick made the rather obvious assumption. “How am I supposed to do it without… anything?”  


“Well...” Bogo spread his arms. “Try to impress them, gain their trust, or just get them to hate you enough to challenge you to a race. I bet It would be a huge deal if some new mammal from somewhere got challenged by the best crew.”  


“So I need to… Race?”  


“If that’s the way you’d like to do it, go for it. Again, our main goal is luring the crews in one place.”  


“Ooookay… I have to tell you though, and it MAY be a bit of a problem but... I don’t have a car.”  


“You do know how to drive, don’t you? Don’t worry about the car.”  


“Well yeah I have a license… but racing? And impress the mammals who literally live above 100 miles per hour? Come on, this plan is doomed to fail.”  


“We have no other choice. We could hunt each racer down one by one, or hope for a lucky phone call, but that’s all a small chance. I want to raise that by acting now.”  


“Well, alright boss,” Nick shrugged and laid back in his chair. “I just hope you won’t give me some rusty car that had escaped from the junkyard.”  


"About that… Follow me." The buffalo headed towards the door and waited for the duo to stand up. "Come on, we don't have all day!"  


Both Nick and Judy followed Bogo, down the stairs to the garages, where 5 different cars were parked. The vehicles that have been impounded after catching someone too many times. Their owner was either jailed or warned that if they got caught in another car speeding through the streets, 3+ years of jail time would be waiting for them.  


"Pick one you like." Bogo said, stopping in the door. "We will have it resprayed, and the licence number changed. They use this technique to get the heat off themselves, so why not use their own technique against them? This way nobody will recognise you, and you will only be a wannabe who wants some trouble. So? Make your pick."  


Nick didn't hear any of those words. He was already staring at his choice, that became clear to him as soon as he saw it. A night black mustang GT. It didn’t have any illegal accessory the racers usually loved to put on their cars, it was a natural beauty with it’s original low spoiler and aerodynamic body.  


"Love at first sight." He said, looking dazed at the car, ignoring all the other ones he could have picked from. "Can I?"  


"If you picked that one, go for it." Bogo said, handing the keys to the fox. Nick, wasting no time, sat inside the car and started up the engine.  


“Ohohooo! Listen to her purr.” Nick said after the iconic low, roaring-like sound hit his ears  


“Her?” Judy asked with crossed arms and a smile. “Should I be jealous?”  


“Absolutely! I wanted a Mustang ever since it was available. Sorry, rabbits were only strong seconds.” He winked, making Judy roll her eyes.  


“Boys and their cars...”  


“This is strictly confidential.” Bogo informed them. “Only I know about this, Hopps, and you Wilde! Nobody else. You will report back straight to me.”  


“So what are we going to tell the others?” Nick looked out of the window. “I bet they will eventually start guessing around.”  


“They will think you two have got suspended because of the maneuver you’ve pulled with the Twins. Your disobedience turns out to be helpful for once,” Bogo answered. Nick opened his mouth to defend himself but looked at Judy, who shook her head. He remained silent. “This whole operation will hopefully last for less than 2-3 weeks. We will know by that time if it was successful or not. You, Hopps, will be off for 2 days, to help Wilde. Most of the races take place at night, so do whatever you like during the day.”  


Nick finally stopped the engine and stepping out of the car, he turned to his Boss “And what will happen if someone… You know... starts chasing me? It will be a bit awkward to explain things to a colleague.’Oh hey, Wolfard! No, I’m not ditching work just to race around, In fact Bogo wanted me to do it! You GOTTA believe me.’ Even I wouldn’t believe myself, and that’s a huge thing to say.”  


“We will cross that bridge when we get to it. Just don’t get caught.”  


“Oh, why of course! Why didn’t I think of it first? Silly me!”  


“You can leave now, you are off for the day. Tomorrow you can take it for a test drive, on the racecourse nearby. Try to get used to the car, you'll need the practise. I will take care of the respraying, Officer Hopps will drive it to you. And Wilde! Don’t get too attached to it, you will need to give it back as soon as the job is over.  


“Understood!” Nick made a quick salute and gave the keys back to the Buffalo. He left the garages with a forced frown on his face, as he tried to hide his excitement about his newfound car. It was definitely one of the most interesting cases he had got in the past weeks. He didn’t know why Bogo wanted to keep his plan a secret, but he probably had a good reason to do so.  


“Will you be alright without me?” Nick asked with a smug smile while walking out of the ZPD with the rabbit by his side. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone!”  


“I should be the one telling you that,” Judy said, frowning a little. “Just because you’re temporarily an outlaw street racer, doesn’t mean you can go wild with everything.”  


“What do you mean, everything?”  


“What I mean is… stay safe, alright? Don’t kill yourself on a corner because you didn’t see a car coming.”  


“Awww, you are worried about me aren’t you? That’s cu… adorable.” Nick corrected himself  


Judy sighed. “I’ve seen car accidents and they are not pretty sight, even when they happen within the speed limit. Now, we are talking about 3-4 times above the limit, I can only imagine what would happen to someone at that speed.”  


“Don’t worry mom. I’ll drive safe and responsibly, and wear my seatbelt!”  


“No! Seriously! If you can choose to push the break and save your life or risk it by pushing the gas even more choose the safe way! Promise me!”  


Nick stopped and looked into the eyes of the worried rabbit and said. “Officer Judy Hopps, I solemnly swear that I will try my best to not kill myself. Good enough?”  


“That will have to do, I guess.” Judy made a weak smile and before opening into her apartment turned back to the fox to say goodbye “See you tomorrow. Remember, you won’t have to come to the ZPD, I’ll bring the car to you.”  


“Oh, that reminds me, don’t you dare hurt her! She is mine!” Nick pointed at Judy while walking backwards  


“Don’t you worry! You won’t see a scratch, however I’ll might discuss a few things with her. You know, just one girl to another… Set a few rules.”  


“Alright.” Nick chucked and finally turned around, to face in his direction of travel. “Goodnight Carrots!”


	2. Test drive

During the next morning, anyone looking at Nick would have thought he was a big kid, who can’t wait to meet Santa. Truth to be told, he was actually waiting for his ‘gift’ just like an impatient kid would for their Christmas presents. He was already up by 5 AM, and knowing his car won’t arrive until Judy does, he did the most reasonable thing anyone would do in this situation. He kept on bombing the noticeably annoyed rabbit with messages like ‘Are you there yet?’ and ‘When will you arrive?’  


Originally, Judy’s plan was to drive the car to Nick by 10 am, but as time passed and messages were starting to accumulate, this deadline got reduced to 9:30, 9:00, and after Nick’s 1000th question Judy decided she would just do it at 8 Am, so the fox would finally stop texting her. At 8:12, it finally happened. The mustang pulled over in front of him, and even though its appearance changed a lot, the grumpy rabbit hopping out of the car made clear everything to Nick.  


“Hey, Carrots, finally! I was starting to get worried you would just keep her to yourself.” Nick said while looking at the now silver-colored car, that had 2 straight black lines running through its hood, and roof. “Bogo knew how to make it obvious I’m here to race, that’s for sure. With this livery, I think everyone will be 100% sure I want some trouble.”  


“Believe me,” Judy passed the keys to Nick “This one is still nothing compared to the ones, the big crews have. You could say, this is a more common one.”  


“And… How did driving it felt?”  


“Feel free to try it out yourself” Judy shrugged while going to the other side. “But I’ll be honest, it did feel great. Now I have an idea of why you chose this car."  


Smiling at this information, Nick sat inside the mustang and started up the engine.  


“Alright, Let’s head to the racetrack of Savanna Central,” Judy said, clicking her seatbelt. “They are expecting us soon. Originally we were scheduled to go there at 11 am, but since you acted like a baby this whole morning, I had to make a few changes.”  


“Well...” Nick grinned while gently pushing the gas pedal and turning onto the road “It worked out, didn’t it?”  


“I should have just muted you as soon as your third message came through.”  


“Really? Would you do that to your Partner?”  


“If he is this annoying… Yes, Yes I would, and next time I will!” She pointed at Nick to emphasize her statement. “Anyway… The whole track will be yours for 3 hours, try to make the most out of it. I’ve read a few articles about racing yesterday, and watched a few videos to be able to help you.”  


“And now you will bomb me with your advice, won’t you? I hate when you do this, but... Do I have a choice?”  


“Nope!" The rabbit shook her head and already started her little presentation. "Alright, so with high speed and rear-drive vehicles, especially with this type of car you will most likely experience understeer. It’s when you turn the wheel and keep going forward because of your momentum and lack of grip on your front wheels. Fortunately, you can ease it by breaking in front of a corner.”  


“O-okay.” Nick chuckled while stopping at a red light. “So in conclusion… If you reach a corner… Break… Wow, I’m learning SO much right now by your advice, PLEASE keep them coming!”  


“NICK! This is serious!” Judy blurted “You weren’t even behind the wheel since you got your license! When was that exactly?”  


“4 months ago...” the fox confessed  


“See my point? So please just… Listen to what I have to say alright? I’ve stayed up all night just to gather information since I knew you won’t do that, and I don’t want to lose a friend because of the lack of knowledge! If you’ll get into an accident and you somehow survive it, you can be 100% sure I will be there with my first words being ‘I told you so!’ So can you at least pretend like you care?”  


“You sure made your homework… Hmph.” Nick said with a slight smile in the corner of his mouth. This seemingly meant a lot to Judy so he decided to listen through whatever advice she had in store, and try to memorize a few things just to calm Judy down a bit. ”Okay, okay sorry. So? What was that about the understeer?”  


As much as Nick tried to listen to Judy, it played out exactly the way he suspected it. He felt like he was back in elementary school when he tried to learn things but if it wasn't interesting for him, nothing could get him to listen. He acted like he was there, but rather focused on the road. It was a weird feeling driving for the first time in traffic in months. After getting to the track it just got weirder.  


He knew he could go as fast as he could, but seemed to be stuck at 120 miles per hour at long straights, even though the car was more than capable for 180 or even 200. He thought it would be easy to push the pedal to the metal, and just let the car speed through at max speed but turns out, fast is scary. He knew two things. First, he wouldn't admit his fear to Judy for anything and second, with this speed he won't win any race or admiration from the crews. This whole plan was standing on weaker paws than a 7-month-old pup who just took their first steps.  


"Okay, I'm glad you took my advice to start slowly," Judy said, but the nervousness could be seen on her. "You got used to the track, now try to feel the car. You can… try to go a bit… Faster."  


"Alright. Hold tight to your seat, carrots, because you are about to see some professional driving." Nick said and tried to pull himself together for the next lap.  


"Yeah… That's what I'm afraid of too." Judy muttered and got prepared, most likely for the worst outcome  


After a long right turn, they saw the starting line. Nick took an inaudible breath and pushed the pedal more than he was willing to before. The acceleration pushed both of them back in their seats. The engine roared, meanwhile, the fox remained silent, he even held his breath, thinking that this could help him focus more on the road. He glanced at the speedometer, that was showing 114. As he was only in 3rd gear, he shifted up, and the engine gave a relief 'sigh' as the RPM bounced back to 4000. However, this lasted about 5 seconds. After this short amount of time, one more gear shift was due. The car was quickly accelerating, that was obvious.  


He shifted again and took a look at the speedometer. 157. He knew he had to stop this habit if he wanted to focus on driving. As a sharp turn was coming, he pushed the breaks and shifted back to 2nd gear. During the turn, he felt the centrifugal force trying to push them out of the track but also felt the grip of the tires keeping them on. There was something special about this feeling, he couldn't really describe. Feeling full control of the turning car, while still going at 50 miles per hour.  


The corner ended and it was time to push the pedal again. His starting doubts seemed to suddenly disappear. He got more confident, and felt the pushing feeling of the acceleration again, as he speeded up. He didn't miss the chance to look at Judy, who seemed terrified. She always turned with speed like this at car chases, but it seemed like when she wasn't the one in control, it terrified her.  


"What is it fluff, impressed by my skills?" He asked, now with a genuine smug smile, and addressed his victory when Judy couldn't answer. He prepared for a quick left, that was followed by a sharper right. He slowed down but seemed like it wasn't enough for the sharp turn. He slipped a bit, while the tires screechingly complained. "Oops… Heh… my bad." He said and positioned himself back in the middle of the road.  


Another long straight line was coming. This was the point he knew he could reach the top speed of this car and right now it was his plan. He pushed the pedal, 3rd gear 4th… 5th… and finally reached the 6th one. His gaze was fixed on the road, and he could only hear that he was going at the car’s top speed by the sound of the engine. He couldn’t help but take a look at the speedometer, that was dancing between 195-196.  


As only a slight corner was coming, he gently pushed the break and tried to shift into 4th gear, but he made a mistake. As soon as he released the clutch, the engine gave a loud roar, just like a lion would when someone steps on its tail. The front end of the car started turning dangerously left so, Nick made a quick right turn with the wheel to avoid hitting the wall. It was a success, but now it was turning left, and before he could react it already did a 360° turn and was already on the way to do another one.  


As he had no idea how to react, all he could do was pushing the brake, and turning the wheel to counteract the and stop the spinning. After it’s 4th full turn, the car finally stopped on the side of the road, in the gravel trap. The danger was over but they both needed a few seconds to calm down.  


“Did...” Judy gulped. “Did you just shift back to 2nd gear instead of 4th?”  


“Yeah…” Nick said, with his paws glued to the wheel, and his eyes stuck wide open. ” I might have done that...”  


“Well… We got lucky the gravel trap was there. Otherwise, it could have ended WAY worse. If you plan to drive like this out there... I will make sure you wear a helmet too.”  


“Heh. Sure... That way nobody will take me seriously.”  


“If you do things like this, the other mammals won’t take you seriously let that be with a helmet or without. Is the engine still okay?  


As Nick twisted the key again, the engine started up as if nothing had happened. “Yep,” The fox said, “My babe is still running fine.”  


“Babe huh? You should give it a name too.”  


“Well… she can go fast… Looks beautiful… Hard to control… I might as well just name her Judy.”  


The rabbit needed a few seconds to realize what the fox just said, and upon understanding it, she gently hit her partner’s shoulder “Shut up.” Judy chuckled, but her heartbeat rate was probably still above 120 per minute. Realizing she was still grabbing the roof handle, she finally let it go and took a look back. Only a lighter smoke trail showed their route of travel, and 2 black brake lines crossing each other all the way to the gravel trap signaled Nick’s desperate attempt to stop the car. “And let’s not do THIS again.”  


“Well...” Nick felt the previous shock disappearing “Let’s be honest! It was awesome! We should definitely do this at another corner!”  


“Don’t… You… Dare…” Judy said while pointing at Nick. “You know that Bogo told me to watch your performance here right? If I decide you are not capable for this undercover job, he will search for someone else.  


“Oh really? So basically you are my supervisor, is that right? Well, in that case, I’ll make sure to make you proud, boss.” Nick said while pushing the pedal, and slowly getting out of the gravel trap back to the nice and grippy asphalt. He made a few more laps and realized something about himself. He was afraid to shift into 6th gear after his little show back at the corner. Even on the long straight he rather stayed in 5th with a struggling engine rather than let it go and shift up. This way he felt safer and believed he was in better control of the car.  


With this tempo, even Judy seemed to be a bit more comfortable. She still held her breath on faster corners, but her fear wasn’t as noticeable as it was at the beginning. One thing was sure, racing on the streets will most likely be more challenging. But what could go wrong?


	3. Cruising the streets... Looking for a race.

As soon as their 3 hours on the track ended, a cheetah, the owner of the track, signaled for them to head back to the pit after this lap. It was about time according to the fox too, as he had started to get tired. This much high-speed driving, especially for the first time, would probably drain anyone.  


"Alright, I think I made a nice time out there," Nick said. "What was my best?"  


"2:06," Judy said looking at her phone, which she’d used as a stopwatch.  


"Nice! And what was the track's best?"  


"You mean the all-time best?"  


"Yeah! I feel like I'm close. Maybe off by 10 or 15 seconds."  


"Do you really want to know? The best is set by professional racers."  


"Go on!"  


"Okay…" Judy sighed. "The track best was set by Allen Saw. It was 1:16."  


"1:16?! How?" The surprised Nick looked at Judy "It's not even possible! Or… How…"  


"-Road! Look at the road."  


“Yeah yeah sorry. 1:16... Jesus.” Nick shook his head while thinking about how that particular time was even possible. Sure it was almost obvious that he wouldn't make a track record driving for the first time, but he thought he was at least close. As they left the track, Nick was amazed by how slow 30 miles per hour seemed after 200. It was almost like they were parking and, if they were going slower, they would be going backward. As neither of them had anything better to do and their stomachs were signalling that it was time to eat something, Nick parked the car next to Zonko’s fast food restaurant.  


‘Zonko’s. Where predators and prey can eat in harmony.’ The sign stated below the logo, the sideways portrait of the smiling goat, who had his arms crossed, a spatula held in one of his hooves. The place was quite full. It was lunchtime after all. After finding an empty table in the middle of the restaurant, Judy told Nick to take a seat while she orders food.  


“Same as always?” Judy asked before standing in the queue  


“You’ve read my mind.” Nick nodded “Oh! And blueberry ice cream if they still have it!” He watched as the rabbit disappeared in the crowd and he was left alone to guard their precious 4 seat table. A Zebra asked if they could borrow one of the chairs and as he was only with Judy, he smilingly nodded. The line turned out to be longer than they anticipated and after 10 minutes of waiting and reading the calorie distribution, the fox started thinking about his new ‘job’ if he could call it that.  


Now the situation seemed a bit more promising after hours on the track. Still nowhere near to the required skill that would be needed but he was more confident. For his first race, he tried to set his expectations low. Just don’t come last and don’t get caught. He smiled at this last part of the sentence. He told himself this a lot of times before joining the police and it seemed like he will need to do it again. ‘Just don’t get caught’  


“Sorry, the lady before me was SUPER pissed, and she asked for the manager because she couldn’t get her ice cream. Oh yeah sorry, no blueberry ice cream for you. Their machine is broke.” Judy placed a burger in front of Nick, and a salad in front of herself  


“That should be their second slogan.” Nick said, grabbing his lunch “Their ice cream machine is never in working condition. ‘The place where predator and prey eat in harmony, but not their ice cream. The machine is broken and we will never fix it because screw you.’ Nah, probably not. It isn’t that catchy.” After taking a bite from his burger, he added. “But I gotta admit they do know what they are doing with this thing. Their sauce is delicious.”  


“Have you got any plans for tonight?” Judy changed the subject  


“Are you sure we should discuss that here?”  


“Yep. Even I can’t hear any other conversation properly, this whole place is chaos. They could be talking about blowing this whole place up right next to us and I still wouldn’t have any idea.”  


“Alright.” Nick shrugged and took another bite “I don’t have a plan per se. I will search for multiple sports cars suspiciously standing next to each other after sunset. I’ll try to ask ‘nicely’ first, but if they are stubborn I could still drop in a few movie strategies. ‘Hey, your car seems fast but this one here could leave you behind in 2 seconds. Go on, prove me wrong!’ So yeah, mainly improvising. Hopefully I will stumble onto a big name eventually. So my plan is: Win the races and get locations.”  


“You can always quit, you know… I bet even Bogo would understand if you rejected this job. I still don’t quite understand why he picked YOU.”  


“My obvious driving skill wasn’t enough?” Nick grinned  


“No, it’s not that… I mean… Kind of… But he should have still picked someone with more experience in driving. Like Wolfard?”  


“He is horrible with undercover jobs, even he knows that. Don’t get me wrong, I love that guy… But he’s only good as an ordinary officer. I guess Bogo didn’t want to use him after the ‘Wolf in sheep’s clothing’ job was a terrible failure.”  


“Yeah… Maybe Delgato?”  


“Out of question. Just like you, he was on TV a lot lately. Sure, if our racing buddies lived under a rock for the past weeks it could work out. But I doubt that’s the situation here.”  


“O-kay… Grizzoli on the other paw...”  


“Again… Not the best actor. I bet his cover would be compromised within a few days. ‘Hyper’ Higgins would be the best, but he was assigned to TundraTown a few months ago. I bet Bogo tried to contact him first.”  


“So that leaves us...”  


“...With me, who has experience with undercover jobs and has a slight knowledge about driving.” Nick finished Judy’s sentence. “It will be challenging I’m sure, but I won’t back out right at the start! Let's just see where it goes. If I fail or feel like I make no progress, I’ll return the car immediately to the chief. Sound good?”  


“Sound good." Judy nodded. "Also I hope I don't need to tell you this but after today’s evening don't go around during the daytime with the mustang. It will be most likely set on a watchlist, and you’ll be stopped as soon as any of our colleagues spots you. You know… Us cops aren't THAT stupid."  


"Mhmm," Nick growled with a full mouth. "That one got obvious right after you pulled blackmail on me. Not ALL cops are stupid."  


Upon finishing their meal they both headed outside. To Nick, the afternoon seemed dangerously closer to the evening. In a few hours, he’d be speeding through the streets, presumably with a few cop cars on his tail. It would be hard being on the other side of the chase, that one was obvious.  


The hours passed quicker than usual, and even the sun seemed to hide behind the horizon with record speed. After 9 Pm Nick and Judy said their goodbyes and they both went their own separate ways. Nick fired up the engine for the millionth time that day and headed out onto the main roads. He knew the first reported races usually came from downtown so he headed that way, keeping to every speed restriction and watching every single sign. He had no intention of getting into a car chase before he could show up to a race. However, he didn’t need to search a lot. After 10 minutes of wandering around aimlessly, he’d already spotted what he was looking for. 3 cars standing next to each other on a less crowded street.  


“Is there a room for one more?” Nick asked after rolling down the driver's side window. A rabbit, that was previously talking to the owner of an Audi, looked up and walked towards the newcomer.  


“You’re in luck bud. We were looking for one more.” the jackrabbit said, looking inside the mustang. “Are you new? Haven’t seen you going around before.”  


“Yep. But even though I’m new, you can be sure I’ll be the first to cross the finish line.”  


“Alright big mouth, race first and then we will see. Quick info. I want to see clean races. If I spot you playing dirty, you can be sure I won’t let you race around again.”  


“Why? What are you, some big name, who just needs to snap his his fingers to do whatever he wants?”  


“I organize these races, let that be enough for you. It will be a short sprint. At that corner go left, after that you’ll see signs where to head next, mainly arrows pointing in the right direction. The ending line will be on Herd street. Also... Cops are already talking about them.” He pointed towards the three waiting cars with a… Police radio? Nick was a bit surprised but tried hiding his shocked expression. How did he get that? “Join only if you can handle a bit of heat.”  


“Oh please. Cops won’t be able to stop me that easily.”  


“Mhmm. One more thing. Entrance fee is 50 dollars. Winner takes 90% of all, so you’ll get 180.”  


“90%? Why is that?”  


“Try organizing these races without helpers. It’s their payment for the trouble. If you win, meet me at Flock street tomorrow at 10 am. I will wait for you for 10 minutes. You show up, you get paid. If you lose, I don’t want to see you until evening, got it?”  


“Got it.”  


“Oh… and in case you get caught... DON’T you dare bring this on me. Not only will I deny it all, I have a few friends too, who you wouldn’t like to meet with.”  


“Alright...” Nick shrugged and gave the 50 bucks to the rabbit. “But I have friends YOU wouldn’t like to meet so… Make sure I’ll get paid.”  


The rabbit chuckled with a slight smile .”Win the race first, big mouth, and then we can talk about payment.”  


“Sorry, didn’t quite catch your name,” Nick shouted it to the leaving rabbit  


“I didn’t say it.” The rabbit shouted back without looking at the fox.  


Normally giving money to a stranger who doesn't even give you a name and hoping for more cash in return was a horrible idea. Nick got ready for the possibility that he wouldn’t see any of that money ever again, even if he won this race. Getting scammed was really likely right now but he had no other idea how to get started with racing. ‘Rabbit scamming a fox. Boy, do I have a deja vu feeling right now?’ Nick chuckled to himself while lining up with the other cars.  


Nick took a look at the driver next to him, inside a blue Mitsubishi. The red panda barely seemed older than 18, but definitely less than 20.  


“Of course.” Nick shook his head, laughing a bit. Most of the racers they caught were under 20. There was one time they caught a middle-aged cheetah during the day because he was driving in a car that they chased the previous night. He was quite surprised that his car was on the watchlist. Turned out, his son took it for a bit of a joyride the previous evening. Of course, it could have been a trick, but really unlikely. At least Nick was confident he would have picked up on their lie.  


“Alright, on my mark.” The jackrabbit said, standing between two cars. He listened in one more time to the radio and informed them about what he had heard “Police will be on you shortly, most likely after the 3rd corner. Be ready.” He raised one of his paws and after a short moment of waiting he quickly lowered it. Nick heard all 4 engines roaring up.  


Despite his lack of experience and horrible start he still managed to come off as first at the beginning. He was even more surprised after keeping the lead, upon leaving the first corner. Looking in the mirror, he already saw his opponents slowly falling behind, and the gap became larger and larger.  


After a brief moment of confusion, he decided it will be better to keep his attention on the road, and think later. He had those arrows to keep an eye out too and he might just miss them if he keeps looking behind himself. He knew how to get to Herd street, it wasn’t that far if they took the fastest route, but right now he had no idea if that would be the case here. There were a million plus one possible ways to get to Herd street, the fastest route might not be the planned one right now.  


“Alright, slow down,” Nick muttered to himself as the corner was coming, with a shining arrow pointing right. It was just like the displays you see before pizzerias, but as nothing else was there, and the finish line was that way, he decided to follow the ‘Pizzeria’ instructions.  


He pushed the brakes way before he normally would. It was one of Judy’s advice. If you still push the brakes while turning the steering wheel that can result in some unpleasant experiences. He released it right before turning the wheel. The car handled like magic at this low speed. He followed the road and glanced at the mirror again. Quite a few seconds had passed before he spotted his opponents turning the same way he did.  


The fox gave a bit of a victorious grin and looked back at the road. “Slight left, slight right.” He recalled this road’s layout. They were patrolling this way quite often with Judy. “CAR!” He almost shouted as he did a dodging maneuver, while the horn unforgivingly ‘shouted’ behind him from the civilian car he’d just overtook.  


He positioned himself back in his lane as he didn’t want to stay on the oncoming part. That would be just too much for him. He was already far away from his comfort zone by going 100 streets, he didn’t want to go further by trying his luck with the oncoming lane. He was already far ahead. There was no need for getting more lead.  


He finally reached a crossroad that had another arrow pointing left. It was quite hard to miss actually. The cornering was a bit awkward, as he had to avoid a car that was standing exactly on the right turning lane, waiting for the lights to change green. So Nick turned from the right lane to left while other cars had green ahead of him. Not dangerous at all.  


His ears perked up as a siren loudly rang behind him. Looks like his little maneuver didn’t remain unnoticed. Looking at the silhouette of a tiger and the license plate, it was obvious for Nick who was behind the wheels. “Ayyy! Fangy! Joining the party?” He joked mainly to himself, while still looking at the road. Now he had his colleague to worry about too.  


Fortunately, he knew the tiger’s driving style. It wasn’t anything aggressive, or strategic, only following the suspect until ordered to do otherwise. So the early braking strategy can still work out, as Fangmeyer won't knock him out of the road by bumping into his car. On the other paw… If the chase will last longer, more officers will join, and it will be almost impossible to escape with no experience on how to do it. Nick knew how things were going on the other side of the chase but not here.  


So he had to finish the race quickly and lose his loud shadow back there. They usually report back immediately to the station with a 10-80 (Chase in progress) But it takes for a while to ask for a 10-78 (Need of assistance) in case the suspect stops. In 8-9 minutes they would get the backup to Herd street even from the station, so Nick had about that much time to finish the race and hide somewhere. After that, he could even give himself up.  


His only hope was that he won’t get much attention as he was only a ‘newbie’ and he was spotted for the first time. The ‘Heavy guns’ only get pulled if they spot a car that has been on a watchlist for a while. So Nick was quite sure he wasn’t worth being chased by a helicopter, or any high-speed unit.  


With this assumption in mind, he carried on with the race. In the corner of his eyes, he saw one of the 3 other racers abandoning the race by turning right where he took the dangerous left. The other two seemed to be determined to get back into the 1st spot. Well… Nick would be too if he was 20 and knew his 50 bucks were on the line. The R8 and the Lancer Evo were still behind him. Losing by 500 feet, but still in view. One small mistake could change everything.  


“Not much road left.” Nick was quite sure now he could win this thing. He started this whole race hoping for a 3rd or best-case scenario, a 2nd place but NOW he was running for first. His colleague on his tail, and opponents not far behind, but still in a great position.  


He entered the 2 lane roundabout with a safe enough speed to make the turn. The last thing he wanted was to fly through it and potentially wreck the car. He didn’t need any sign to tell him he had to take the 1st exit, but the arrow was there, pointing in that exact direction too. He pushed the gas again, lengthening the gap between him and others.  


Another car joined the chase, but it was far behind, so Nick had no idea who drove it. Probably for the best. ‘Just focus on the road dumb fox! Or would you like to say hi to them?’ he could almost hear Judy’s mocking advice. At least if she was next to him right now, she would probably constantly tell him to focus on the road ahead and not the cars behind.  


2 corners were between him and the win. That’s all. One right, and one left, probably less than 1 mile. In the meantime, he saw Fangmeyer falling behind a bit. It was either because he was ordered to focus on the 2 other racers, or just simply couldn’t keep up. Either way, it was great news for the fox. Bigger chance to escape.  


He slowed down again, now leaving even more road to do so. He was as cautious as possible since he had a lot of space between him and his rivals. He turned onto a little one-way road. He was a bit more nervous because the parked cars had left him a tighter place to drive on but he still managed to go through it with record speed.  


While getting closer to a stop sign, every inch of him wanted to step on the brakes. He could even hear his instructor saying. ‘Slow down, wheels must stop, look around first and go if you can.’ but this technique would probably result in everyone catching up to him and he’d broken so many safety laws right now, it wouldn’t be his most dangerous move within the past 10 minutes.  


So he just ignored the danger signals in his brain and drove out of the one-way alley, almost colliding with a white van. The other driver pushed the brakes and the horn at the same time. Nick could even hear a ‘Watch where you drive, ASSHOLE!’ but he was already on his way again. With no more turns and still everyone behind him, he crossed the finish line with a huge grin on his face.  


It felt great, being in first after a race. Maybe a bit too great. He was an officer, after all, maybe he shouldn’t be as excited about winning as he was right now. He broke so many road safety laws that were there for a reason and almost collided 2 times, yet he was there shouting with clear happiness in his voice. His mind was already telling him to go again, let’s find another race, win everything… Just like at… His grin faded  


Just like at an illegal casino after winning a lower price. He thought to himself as he saw in the distance the other cars crossing the laid out line. They let you win, so you go back for more. You try to move up and lose everything on higher stakes. “Dammit!” He cursed to himself.  


This whole race was probably just set up for a newbie so he can taste how winning feels, and after he goes back for more, he just finds himself in the last place all over again, until he loses all his money. He didn’t win anything. They let him win, therefore he moved nothing forward to meet with any or the big crews. He tried to pull himself together as he still had a colleague to outrun. But this sudden feeling of happiness faded. He was just a fool they most likely played with. They hustled they out-hustler.


	4. Going with the flow

Nick’s escape went surprisingly easily. He had no idea if he had his Boss or his luck to thank, but he wasn’t complaining. As soon as he managed to get out of sight, he drove into a hidden alley. At the police, they usually set up a quadrant in situations like this. It’s a zone search, near the last seen location, in the hope to spot the criminal again and start the chase again.  


Waiting there, he planned his way back. As he had no other idea where to store the car he decided to just drive it back home. He will have to rent a garage, if he doesn’t want to get too much attention, he knew that. A Mustang going back to his house during midnight would most likely draw a lot of unwanted attention. Some of his neighbors might even report him because of being suspicious.  


So searching for a rentable garage on the outskirts will be his first thing to do tomorrow. Actually, pick up his payment first and THAN go search for a garage. Now he was 100% sure he would receive his money. If they want the mammal they want to fool to get back for a higher skate race, they will pay the first winned race. Nick pulled up his phone and called his boss, who picked up within the first 3 beeps.  


“Wilde here.”  


“Report.” The buffalo got immediately to the point.  


“Yeah, It’s nice to hear from you too, how was your day so far?”  


“Wilde for… Just tell me what you managed to know.”  


“Well, I won the race, but I have a feeling that it was just a bait. You know, to go back for more.”  


“Acknowledged. Anything else?”  


“I’ve met a rabbit who might know more about how things are going around here. I’ll meet him tomorrow at 10 am. Flock street. Would you like me to bring him in?"  


“No. At least not yet. We have to see how much he knows. If we catch him, you might compromise your cover for nothing. As you said, he might be just a small fish.”  


“Okay, so what’s next?”  


"Keep going. Try to get more information about this rabbit, this is our best bet right now."  


"Will do. Also one more thing…" Nick stopped. He wanted to let his boss know about the police radio, he saw in the paws of that rabbit but he had no idea how to do it. How would you tell someone that one of his officers, who he would take a bullet for, is stabbing him in the back? In the end, he decided it will be best if he is just straight forward with it. "That rabbit… had a police radio. It could answer a few of our unanswered questions, like how they knew the positions of our backup units, but also gave a few more other ones, because as long as it didn't grow legs… someone had to give it to him."  
A few seconds were needed for the Buffalo to fully understand what the fox just said. He was probably running through the possible officers in his head who might have made a deal with the enemy.  


"Son of a…"  


Nick could already feel the anger rising with the buffalo so he decided it will be better if he holds the phone a bit further from his ears. He was right.  


"DAMMIT! I'M GOING TO HAVE A FEW WORDS WITH THIS UNTRUSTABLE IDIOT. Of course, we are unable to catch any racers if someone is working against us from the inside..."  


"Jep… That's about the reaction I expected." Nick muttered. "Let it all out chief."  


"...If the media finds this out… god, I can already see the headlines… I really hope all the comms are in place, and this is all a big misunderstanding otherwise, the next meeting won't be spent in a happy mood."  


"It's never happy, more like boring most of the time," Nick added, but Bogo just ignored him.  


"Someone is gonna get FIRED because of this, mark my words. Anything else I should know about?"  


"No, sir. At least not yet. I will keep you updated."  


"Good." With that, the call ended.  


"Wow… Rude…" Nick said "Not even a 'Goodbye darling'" He looked at the time. It was 10:14. The race and the chase weren't too time-consuming. More like the hiding to make sure nobody is near him.  


Taking another look at his phone he grinned, after spotting an unread message he didn’t see before.  


**Carrots** (10:01 PM) How are things going?  


_Hi mom! Don't worry we are just taking drugs and drinking LOTS of alcohol. But the party is dead. I'll be back in 30 minutes._  


**Carrots** (10:16 PM) Really funny Nick…  


_I won the first race, but I'll head back home now. This much excitement was more than enough for the first time. Also, be prepared for an angry Bogo next time you visit the ZPD._  


**Carrots** (10:17 PM) What did you do this time?  


_For once I'm not the reason he is pissed off. I just told him the truth. I saw a police radio in the paws of a criminal and it's obvious that someone had to give it to him._  


**Carrots** (10:19 PM) Are you sure it was a police radio? 

_I know when I see one…_

**Carrots** (10:20 PM) But no radio has been reported to be missing, or broken. 

_Well… If you want to give the radio to a criminal, I think you want to leave behind as few traces as possible. I guess our buddy thought he could sneak one out without anyone noticing it, and sneak it back when the racing fewer ends. The joke is: It worked so far._

**Carrots** (10:23 PM) But who could be working against us? There is no way… Unless... 

**Carrots** (10:24 PM) Can you bet on races? 

_I'm not sure. There might be a chance for that on big races. Why?_

**Carrots** (10:25 PM) I'm just wondering. 

**Carrots** (10:25 PM) I mean I can't really think of anyone who would do that. 

**Carrots** (10:26 PM) But since you saw that radio, with your eyes there is a possibility. 

_Wow… You are rambling within text. You know you don't necessarily have to write down all your thoughts, right?_

**Carrots** (10:28 PM) Sorry. So what I wanted to say was… Someone might want to get a bit additional income by helping that guy, and betting on him for races. 

_I don’t think so. First of all, he wasn't racing. He was just there, informing us. So if our colleague wanted to bet on him it was a horrible choice. Second, how would a police radio help him actually win races? I don't know fluff, if someone did give it to him, I doubt it was for income raising purposes. More like blackmailing or I don’t know._

**Carrots** (10:31 PM) You are right. I will dig myself into it more when I’ll be back on duty, but right now I'm useless. I'll try to get some sleep because I've been up for 42 hours straight. Goodnight! 

_Sleep tight._

Judy didn't even see Nick's last message, she became offline as soon as her last text went through. After one more quick look around, Nick made sure no cop car was in sight and slowly drove home. He was never the worrying type, but to be honest he never had to worry about anything. They always had everything planned out with Finnick, to explain every part of a shady business, and as long as they followed that plan, everything went just fine. But when something was out of his reach, he hated that feeling. Just like the 'incident' with the carrot pen. He was just going with the flow to eventually get that pen, and leave that rabbit behind once and for all. Right now it was almost the same feeling. He had no idea when a siren would start ringing behind him, he had no influence in that. So all he planned was to just get home and leave the police cars behind for that night. Whenever he heard a siren in the distance his ears perked up, and he hoped it wasn't him that had been spotted.  


He wasn't afraid of being caught. After a little bit of confusion, he could get off easily by asking a bit of help from the buffalo. But getting off too easily would be pretty suspicious and if someone saw it, he can be sure, he won't get closer to any crew, and the whole undercover plan can go to the bin.  


So he’d rather avoid contact with any cop cars. Fortunately, all he heard was weak siren sounds from far away from his location, so his way back home was quite eventless. He parked the car in his garage, (First car for the first time.) And gone to bed.  


The next morning he woke up more fresh than any of the days before. He woke up, had breakfast, searched for garages online He found an okay one at the edge of savanna central, at Harbour street. He will have to do half hours of walk each time he wants to go there from his house but it was the best one to remain unnoticed. He decided to give it a visit, but first, he had a meetup to do. He left his house and headed straight to Flock street on foot.  


The streets were kind of clear as the morning rush hour already ended. About 5-6 cars were seen at red lights, instead of 30. And the angry horn wave was nowhere to be heard. Looking at his phone he saw, he still had a few minutes until 10 o'clock so he just sat down at a bench, and enjoyed the view of the park, and the voice of small birds, chirping on the trees.  


As he looked left, he saw a few elementary school students with their teacher standing in line for ice cream. The vixen standing behind the small stand tried her best to serve as many customers as possible within the shortest time.  


The kids who had got their ice cream, were already happily chatting while eating their sugary, cold sweets while the others were still standing in line.  


"Nice driving back there. I've heard you've won with several car lengths. Not bad for a rookie." A voice next to him said. The jackrabbit sat down next to Nick, with an ice cream in his paws. "But don't get too carried away. It's just the start."  


"Yeah, I felt like it was a bit too easy. Almost like you've let me win. Will you up the game time?" Nick laughed at his own 'joke' and watched the rabbit's reaction, hoping he could catch an alarmed look or anything that could reassure his assumption that his race was indeed a bait one. But the rabbit just rolled his eyes, almost like he didn't expect anything else from the fox.  


"Your earnings, don’t spend it all immediately." He slid an envelope to the fox while licking his ice cream "So you said you'd like to up the game. Did you mean it? I have another opportunity for you. This one will be cop free, only you and the rivals. Pure skill show off. However, the entry fee will be a bit higher, 100 bucks."  


"Wait… How can the race be cop free? Cops are pretty much everywhere during the night, aren’t they?"  


"Well…" the rabbit smiled. "Believe it or not, I have my ways to direct the cop cars somewhere else. Of course, there is always a chance that one patrolling unit crosses your path, but it will be most likely a calm race. As soon as the first reports come in about you racing, you already crossed the finish line. The question is: Are you in?"  


"Do I have a choice?"  


"There is always a choice." The rabbit shrugged. "You can decide to quit, stay on lower stakes or… Take a bit of risk and earn more reputation. Nobody will know who you are if you keep racing for 200 bucks."  


"180… after you withdrew the tax."  


"You get my point."  


"It would be a bit easier if I knew your name. Or at least something I can call you by."  


The rabbit gave a small chuckle "You can call me Jack. Not my real name obviously. You need to be careful, when you meet a lot of faces daily, and you need to be even more careful with who you trust."  


"Couldn't have said better myself. So Jack huh? Like the Spawrrow or the Savage?"  


"I'm surprised you've seen the savage movies. Another educated fellow. Yeah, my name choice might or might not be connected to the savage movies." Jack stood up, or more like hopped off the bench they were sitting on and took another questioning look towards the fox. "So? What's gonna be? Joining or not?"  


After a bit of thinking, Nick made his choice."You can count me in."  


"Good." Jack nodded and threw the paper he got next to the ice cream, into the trash. "Starting line will be on Clover street, at 10:15 Pm. Don't be late, only if coppas start chasing you. Don't bring the party alright? We'll make our own. One more thing. If you plan on running on the streets for more than 2 races, buy a phone. You don't need to buy a hyper one but do buy a phone."  


"Why? I have a ph…"  


"Yes I'm sure you do," Jack interrupted "But you don't want to give your real phone number to a stranger, would you? You gotta be careful with your identity, especially when the cops are on you. So buy a phone.” He turned back one more time, before going his own separate way. “I like you so far Big Mouth. Let’s see if you could keep it up.” With that, he left the park. The fox sat on the bench while looking at his envelope. 180 dollars, just as promised.  


He finally managed to get a name and seems like his suspect is a Jack savage fan. Well, not exactly world-shaking clues, but something to start with.  


He pulled up his phone and messaged Judy. He had a few things he wanted to discuss in person, but the main reason was that, he wanted to meet with her.  


_Awake?_ (Sent 10:09 AM)  


He waited a few minutes for the indicator to change into 'Seen' and potentially receiving an answer but it remained in the 'Sent' stage. Nick wasn't surprised. Judy usually tends to sleep until the afternoon after being awake for 2 days. Plus she had time to sleep, as it was still her 'forced' day off.  


His talk with the garage owner was pretty one-sided. The giraffe told him everything he had to know, starting with saying he doesn't care what Nick was doing with the garage as long as he keeps paying the rent. Almost like he knew why Nick needed the garage. Normally he would show his badge and have a bit of talk with the giraffe about how every civilian should help the police officers in times like this, but now he was grateful he could count on the owner's discretion. Right after they dealt with the paperwork and received the keys he spotted Judy's answer.  


**Carrots** (1:23 PM) Just woke up. What's up?  


_Can we meet?_  


**Carrots** (1:24 PM) Sure. But somewhere private. I don't think your racing buddies would take it lightly if you show up with a cop by your side.  


_The resting place on the mountain? Nobody uses that road since the highway has been built. It's so abandoned it could be a scene of a Z category horror movie._  


**Carrots** (1:26 PM) As long as we don't stay until midnight and do some demon summoning ritual, I think we will be fine. But in case we do, I will still have a handsome fox by my side who has a natural built-in night vision goggle.  


_You do know that it isn’t a night vision goggle, right? I still can't see anything in total darkness, I need light of some sort. So no cave diving, at midnight with a demon on our tail. Got it?_  


**Carrots** (1:27 PM) See you at the resting place in 1 hour. Sounds good?  


_1 hour is good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm back but I think you've figured it out too by the chapter you've just read. Did I manage to learn more about cars? Yeah, absolutely not. But I'll try to make the racing scenes as reasistic as possible. Try not to raise your expectations too high though.   
> I'll try to update every 2 weeks, that seems doable. I could do it weekly but the chapters would be too rushed. (Yes, even more rushed than it is now).   
> Also 1 more thing. I have no betareader right now, only my little trusted grammarly who wants to put hypens-between-every-words. So if you feel like it, and have the time to betaread for me, let me know.


	5. Another night, another race.

Nick wrote down the last lines and was already on his way to the mountain, that separated Savanna square from the Rainforest district. It's serpentined road was always a pain to drive through, so it was a relief when a highway was built, with a tunnel running through the mountain. Occasionally a GPS would direct a few mammals to the serpentined road, but other than that it was quite peaceful there.  


The view was beautiful. You could see Downtown's skyscrapers emerging from the trees in one direction, with the small silhouette of the palm hotel of Sahara Square in the distance, and the rainforest district's sky trams in the other way. The view would probably be better at night with the light shining from everywhere, but it was still a great sight.  


"So? Brought your Ouija board?" Judy asked after hopping next to the waiting Nick, who gave a grin  


"Ouija boards are for talking with spirits. We need to draw pentagrams and light candles for demon summoning. Get your horror knowledge right. Besides… knowing our luck, our film would be simply about a psychopath."  


"Nooo" Judy gave a painful groan "Not another psychopath story. Those are the most boring ones. At least have a supernatural plotline!"  


"The jump scares do get you, no matter how 'boring' a film is you gotta admit. I still remember you jumping on the couch and covering your eyes on the '13th of September'"  


"Jump scares are just cheap way of making a film scary, okay? And you are just as easily scared as I am."  


"That's not true!" Nick protested.  


"Night of the 12 wolves? You seemed like you needed a change of pants after that."  


"Harr harr. Says the one who told me with a trembling voice to watch something else in the middle of the movie."  


"It was boring! Of course, I wanted to watch something else."  


"No-no. Do you know what was boring? 400 days. That was torture. And whose idea was that?  


"It was… Alright, that was a horrible film, I have to admit. But seemed so interesting at the start. Anyway… I don't suppose you wanted to talk about films, do you?" The doe closed their little film discussion.  


"Yeah, to be honest, I didn't message you to talk about a certain thing, I wanted to discuss." Nick leaned to the iron fence of the parking place, that was there to stop the mammals from falling 60 feet into the forest "Just needed to talk to someone. You know. Moral support."  


"Well…" Judy laughed a little. "Moral support is my specialty. Give it all you got."  


"I need to improve." He got straight to the point. "I mean… Come on… Breaking 100 feet in front of a corner? It's just wasted speed and time. Everyone will easily get passed me."  


"I already told you… Things are different with 100 miles per hour. You need the time to slow down, otherwise, you give the wall a warm welcome."  


"What was that about the… the opposite of the understeer? The oversteer? You said it can be used to do a controlled slide, that could be a faster way of cornering."  


"You want to drift with no knowledge of how to do so and THAT car?"  


"Yeah… I-I mean I'm a fast learner. I just need an instructor and I'm back on track."  


"Look, I did a bit of a research…"  


"Of course you did," Nick muttered  


"...And 'muscle' cars, such as your mustang aren't famous for their handling. And drifting… That's absolutely out of the question. You need to intentionally kick your car out of balance, maintain angle not to talk about quick reflexes… It sounds complicated… Look, as I said you can stop at any time."  


"Mama raised no quitter." Nick shrugged "I just need some help but I don't know where to ask for it. I could just run around… Ask every racer with googly eyes… I don't know…" He waited a few seconds and after remembering something he chuckled. 

"Maybe your old crush could help in this case."  


Judy tilted her head in confusion. "My 'crush'? What are you…"  


"Didn't you tell me you've had a crush on Jack Savage for a while?"  


"Really? Nick… I was 16… Every doe had a crush on Jack's actor back then. Don't tell me you will ask Daniel Crawl to help."  


"Not him, obviously. But the guy I talked about yesterday is splitting image. He even has the stripes on his face and ears. And guess what? He is running by the name 'Jack' on the streets."  


"Would he be willing to help?" Judy asked  


"I dunno. Hopefully. Seems like a cool guy, but he is more of an organizing mammal than a racing one. We will see. I'll try to get closer to him, but… it will be hard. Unfortunately, he is not stupid or naive. Barely said his 'cover' name, and I still don't know anything about him. Well… I do know that he probably thinks it's the best if he is doing important things by himself." Nick showed the white envelope to Judy. "It was him giving me my money, and not some partner of his. He is either egocentric or just trusts nobody else with important matters."  


“Sounds reasonable,” Judy noted. “Doesn’t really show an egocentric figure, more of a cautious one. Just think about the trouble the missing money would cause. Your Jack would get into big trouble if one of the bigger payouts went missing.”  


“Yeah sure…" Nick shook his head. "If I showed up with the chief and a few other officers on my side, I guess that would have been a strike to his ‘Cautious’ mentality. I don’t know what to think of him yet.” He placed his elbows on the iron fence and stared in the distance while supporting his chin with his paws  


“And I thought you were the better judge in other mammals' personalities.” Judy teased but got no reaction from the fox. He was too deep in thoughts.  


“I need a strategy, but I lack the information to make one… If only I could...” He shook his head and looked back at Judy. “But, that’s my problem, isn’t it. Let's talk about something else. When will you be back in duty?”  


“Tomorrow morning.” The rabbit answered immediately. “Why?”  


“Well, If you had been assigned to the night shift I’d have a few ‘Get out of jail for free cards.’ if you know what I mean.”  


“You know it’s risky, but we can do that a few times, I can see it happening.” Judy said, thinking heavily about the ways to make Nick get off easily” I can request myself in the night shift, get the others off your chase, to stay alone with you, and I can slowly fall behind, nobody will pick up on that, but it will be suspicious after a few times. So use your cards wisely.”  


“Always nice to count on my partner. What would I do without you?”  


“You’d probably be on the streets selling Pawsicles.” Judy grinned, receiving a slight chuckle from the fox.  


“Ouch. That hurt… But yeah… Fair point.”  


The rest of the afternoon was spent talking with each other, not mentioning again any of the racers or Nick's undercover job. He did need to visit a phone store, just to buy a simple phone he will use for calls only. It wasn't that hard of a task. He patiently nodded as the store employee told him everything about their newest prototype. The zebra did a good job in that. If Nick wasn't here to buy a cheap one he might have considered buying the promoted phone.  


With everything done, he was ready for the evening. He was already in his car 1 hour before the discussed time. It was tempting to just go and cruise the streets but he also knew it was riskier. So he waited, checking the time every 5 minutes on his phone, and growling impatiently with each clock check. When he decided it was time, he slowly rolled out and headed towards his destination.  


Arriving at Clover street, he was a bit worried that he had gotten screwed over, but spotting 2 cars, he gave a relieved sigh. Closed in on the small street, to see a badger and a skunk talking to each other next to their cars, laughing at the other's jokes. He also saw his targeted rabbit, a few feet away from the talking mammals, leaning towards a building with crossed arms, looking at his feet.  


“Ah, you arrived. Good.” Jack acknowledged after glancing at the fox. “We are waiting for 1 more than we can start.”  


“And if he doesn’t come?”  


“Don’t worry about that, it never happened before.” Jack shrugged “Just wait 2 more minutes.”  


Hoping it was the perfect time to give a few questions, Nick rolled next to Jack and got out of the car.  


”You know… I’m curious.” He leaned to the wall too” You are running these races on the streets, but… What good does that do to you? Or you just keep your ‘10%’ for yourself?”  


Jack looked at Nick with suspicion in his eyes “Curiosity is a bad trait on the streets. Why do you care?”  


Yep, too straightforward. Nick noted to himself. “Well, If there is something I know about the ‘streets’ is that nobody is doing anything just for the others. Or if you do, you are a jackass. Sorry for the wording.”  


Looking up and down on Nick, still, in suspicion, Jack finally made a slight smile. “You aren’t stupid bud. However, the reason I do this is none of your business. But to answer part of your question, No, I don’t keep any of the money for myself. It all goes to the ‘setup’ crew.” On Jack’s part, the discussion was over, but Nick wanted to know more.  


“About that radio... It’s not exactly something you can get in every store. Yesterday I got lucky with the cops, but next time… it would be better to know if they are planning something against me. Where can I get something like this? Do I need to make a phone call or...”  


“Are you poking your red nose into everybody’s business? I just talked to an old friend and pulled a favor. No, you can’t get this anywhere unless you are planning on raiding the police station. And before you ask, no, I won’t save your sorry ass with my friend. It was a one time favor. He will arrest me too with no regrets in case he catches me. It was awkward for him too and I don’t want to make him more uncomfortable. So if you thought I have a few connections with the police… No, I don’t."  


Nick was already dancing on thin ice with his questions. For now, the rabbit didn't seem to notice anything but if he keeps asking these questions, he might. Maybe one more…  


"Arh I was hoping I could get one of these too. I bet the big crews have one." He said with a dreaming face. "It must be nice to be known everywhere in Zootopia, even if it's only your car. Do you know any of the big guys?"  


"If you think about the 3 crews that are all over the news… Yes… I do. What's more, I know each one of the leaders personally."  


"Do you think you could… you know… say a few words for me? Just to show them what I could do? I'd really like to run with the big names."  


"Woah slow down there, buddy! You have a lot of rep to earn before you get to run with them. Stick with the playground for now. You get recognized, you will have a shot in impressing them, just be patient. But I'll tell you what. If you win this race you'll be already noticed. I'm not saying you will be able to challenge a crew, but they will definitely look at you as a possible challenger."  


"So just win the race, huh? That's it?"  


"I didn't say it will be easy. It will be much harder compared to the yesterday one. Right when you think you are winning, bam. You just got yourself a 2nd place. So watch your back, and try to keep the line… otherwise, someone will take over. Ah, speak of the devil." Jack turned to a red-silver Mazda Rx8, that slowly rolled next to them. The windows were tinted black, so Nick had no idea about the identity of the mammal sitting there, but assuming from the size of the car he couldn't be bigger than a wolf. "Alright, let's get this party started, ladies." The rabbit clapped and signaled the 2 other mammals to take their places. The badger and the skunk fist-bumped each other and sat inside their own cars. Before doing anything, Jack listened in to the police radio, and Nick heard the voices too  


_"2-21, supervisor requesting a status update on ongoing 10-80."_ Clawhauser's former voice was heard  


_"Dispatch! We are still going, he's not stopping! Requesting roadblock on Pack road. Also, most of my cover units are gone, repeat, my cover is gone. I need 10-78 ASAP"_  


_"2-21, we're setting up a block at the requested location. Backup is about 2 minutes away from your position."_  


_"Dispatch! 2-42 here reporting from code 3 chase, I lost visual. My car took a bit of a beating, going back to the station."_  


_"Affirmative. Supervisor requesting to set up a quadrant south from Berry lane, every available unit head that way."_  


_“This is 2-46 closing in on the north-east side of code 6, requesting air support. This is a big zone to cover.”_  


Poor Ben. Nick thought to himself. If someone, he worked the most out of all the officers there. Keeping an eye on multiple ongoing chases and making important calls became one of his daily duties. While he wasn't the only one answering the radio, he was definitely the best one. Who would have thought that the goofy looking receptionist was this great at ordering units around? Most of the time when they caught someone, it was greatly his merit.  


Jack looked up with a satisfied look on his face “Alright, the police are quite pinned down out there, expect a smooth race. Rules are the same as before, hope you all brought the entry fee."  


With hidden pain, Nick gave his 100 dollars to the rabbit. If he was still going with the pawsicle business it would be half of his daily earning and it will only get more expensive.  


"Where will I start?" Nick asked, after lending the money and giving out his new phone number. The road was too small for them to start next to each other.  


"Next to the Rx8." Jack pointed at the location.  


"Wait. So I will start behind those guys?" Nick asked. "Why do I start behind them?"  


"Evening the odds." Jack shrugged and before Nick could ask anything else, he was already in place to start the race. "Alright, everybody is here. We can start a bit earlier." He made two circles with his finger signaling everyone can start up the engine. 

Everybody did as such. Nick heard all 4 engines starting up. His heart already started beating faster, even though they were only at the starting line. He looked at the 3 held up fingers of the rabbit. It changed to 2 and finally one and after that, Nick's official second race finally started.  


His disadvantage of starting from the 2nd line turned out to be as annoying as he expected. His car wanted to bolt out of the area, but the one ahead of him didn't let it. As the road was tight too he had no chance to take over, so all he could do was give an irritated growl and stay close behind. The Rx8 seemed to break down, or something, because it fell behind too quickly. After the first corner, it was already nowhere to be seen. Well, one less opponent to worry about. Nick thought to himself. However, he was still in 3rd place, and even though he shadowed the one in front of him, the other in the 1st place gained more and more lead.  


"C'mon just give me just one small window." Nick gritted his teeth. No matter how hard he tried to take over, the car in front always closed the opportunity on him. He leaned slightly left, it did the same. He tried peeking to the right, with the same result. It started to get on Nick's nerves. "You two are on the same team huh?" The fox made the assumption. There was no way someone would rather focus on him and let the leader escape like that. Only the winner gets anything. They are working together.  


"You want me serious huh? You got it!" He made a plan. It was obvious he won't win again just like that. His car alone won't make the cut. Is Jack testing me? The quick thought ran through him. Maybe he wants to know how I manage to win from a disadvantaged position. Is that what it's all about?  


He lured the car in front, to the left side of the road. It was clear that the badger's tactic was to block him at all costs. Maybe he could make his advantage of that at a corner. His car was definitely accelerating more quickly than the car in front. He knew that by simply having to hold back by trying to not collide with the car ahead.  


All he had to do was getting next to the badger, his car would take care of the rest. He leaned so left his wheels almost hit the curbstone, but his plan worked so far. His friend there copied exactly what he was doing. As a sharp turn was coming, it gave exactly what he needed. A short time of not being watched constantly. He waited for the car in front to push the brakes. When it did, Nick got out of the slipstream and made his move. He forced the other car to stay in the inner lane, giving him less road to use for the turn. It slowed down more and that was all Nick needed. He almost collided with the building because of his momentum, but after getting the control back, he just left behind that badger with no problem.  


"There we go!" The fox couldn't help but give a victorious grin. However, the race was far from complete. With still more than half the track ahead of him and another opponent to overtake he focused on the road again. He had quite the gap to work down. He only spotted the skunk for brief seconds before disappearing behind the walls. He was gaining on him but the time lost while trying to overtake the previous car seemed to hurt a lot.  


His trusted car did it's best in closing the gap so if he lost this, that will definitely be because of his fault and not the car's. Every time he had to slow down he pushed the gas impatiently as soon as he could to reach his rival, however, this usually resulted in forgetting to shift back and almost stalling the car because of low RPM.  


Finally, he was in the same position as before, a few feet behind the other car. Overtaking seemed unfairly easy. The tight road turned into a 4 laned space paradise, with all the possibility for Nick to variate his strategy. He was probably supposed to overtake the previous car here, with no chance to recover from the lost time. But now he just made a distracting left and a sudden right, and bam. Already next to the stressed Skunk, who swapped his stare between the fox and the road. Nick gave a grin and a quick salute before leaving his other opponent behind too.  


Now all he had to do was enjoy the view and lay back. The engine kept on complaining because of the high RPM. The reasonable choice would have probably been to shift up and Nick almost did but stopped halfway reaching for the stick. He had some unpleasant experience with the 6th gear he didn't want to relive again. So he was there hesitating whether he should or shouldn't shift up.  


Looking in the mirror he saw the car behind still getting further and further from him so there was no need for bigger speed. He placed his paw back on the steering wheel. There is no way he is losing this. He just can't possibly...  


Glancing at the mirror again he saw something he hoped to never see again. The Mazda, he saw falling behind at the start, now gained a lot of speed all of a sudden. It avoided the skunk's car just as easily as Nick did and now it was on its way to do the same with Nick. How did that guy manage to close up so fast? Nick wondered, while frequently swapping his attention between the road and the mirror. 60 feet.. 30… 20 … and it was already on Nick's tail.  


Now the fox found himself in an entirely new situation. He never had to defend a position. To his luck, a corner was coming so simply the speed difference didn't decide everything. They had to turn on another tight road. He could try to defend his position there.  


He did what he could. Slowed down, defending the inner lane and potentially blocking the car to take over. He heard the screeching of the tires but it wasn't his car that gave this sound. He looked into the mirror again but saw nothing. Looked to the left and… the rx8 was there, sliding around him on the longer way. They left the corner head to head each other. At first, he thought he still came out as the winner of their little fight, as his car slowly inched a bit further from his rival, but this hope quickly faded as the Rx8 whooshed away from him after a horribly timed gear shift.  


Everything was lost. He saw the finish line but he was too far away to do anything. He helplessly watched as the Mazda crossed the line with him being pushed back to 2nd place. All of his work, the effort he put into the race was worth nothing. He just lost at the last corner.  


Having no information and will to do other races he just decided to go home. 1 race per night wasn't too effective, but what could he do? Losing races isn't effective either.  


He was rather on autopilot while driving to his rented garage, and when he closed the door and pocketed the keys it didn't change. He was constantly thinking about his next move. He needed a plan to follow, even a seemingly stupid one. Anything would be better than just going with the flow. As he was walking under the moonlight and with the distant siren sounds echoing, he finally came up with something like an idea. It was like this. He needed a teacher. He just saw a driver who overtook 3 racers on the last 1 mile. He knows where the winner will be tomorrow morning. It doesn't require a complicated thought chain to connect the dots.  
It wasn't likely that his plan would work out exactly the way, he wanted it to, but it was a plan. It was his wacky and unlikely plan. They might make a fool out of him, they might be laughing at his pathetic attempts but he has to at least try. He smiled a bit as a 

4-year-old cheesy pop song just came into his mind and wouldn't leave for anything.  


_I wanna try everything, I wanna try even though I could fail..._  


Damn you, Judy… You poisoned my music taste...

He chuckled while he kept on humming the annoyingly catchy song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is it this hard to write a proper Nick Wilde? Yeah sure, the reader knows it's him, but only because you imagine him in front of yourself, almost like filling in the blanks. You know what is supposed to go there, so you fill it in. I've read a few fanfictions where his lines just worked so well, and it adds a lot to the story. And there is mine, like an offbrand plushie that looks nothing like the original one but you still love it because you know what it's supposed to be.
> 
> Aaaanyway, I'm here again now with a bit longer chapter. Hope you enjoyed. I want to finish this story, because I have some plans connected directly to publishing the last chapter.


	6. Back on track

The next day, Nick got ready, and prepared his marvelous disguise. That being his beloved sunglasses, and pawaiian shirt He started walking towards the meeting place, where the last winner and his 'Secret agent' will meet during the next hour. In the past 2 days he has already walked more than he did the last month and his legs didn't leave this unnoticed. Both of his legs complained painfully after each step.  


I gotta work out more, I'm really out of shape. He noted to himself as he looked inside a pizzeria, near the meeting point. He took his time to read through the menu, then went on with his little trip. He acted like a normal pedestrian who happen to have business on that road. Nothing out of ordinary here. Meanwhile he tried figuring out who the driver of that rx8 was, but literally anyone could be his suspect. Well not everyone… The car itself was a class 2 type of car.  


In zootopia they divided the cars for each mammal into classes. Class 1 types were for rodents and smaller mammals. Those were mainly allowed within litle rodentia, and they needed permission to use it outside. Class 2 was a wider range, from rabbits through foxes, to smaller wolfes, any type of mammal could use it. Class 3 was for rhinos, hippos and horses. Not surprisingly that type of car was the one they one they used in the ZPD. Judy requested a smaller one a million times but it just seemed like it's cheaper to install a proper seat. Class 4 was the highest, but most of the times those were made mammal specific. Elephants and Giraffes both drove class 4 type cars but they still couldn't swap easily between each other, while it could work with every other class of car and mammal.  


So his guy was in a class 2 car. That can narrow the search for a bit. Zebras and antelopes are out. He wondered as he looked around. He saw a wolf couple happily eating their ice cream, a few sheeps hurrying somewhere… could be a sheep...  


Nick glanced at his phone to see the time. 10 minutes until 9:30. His stare wondered a bit more. Horses… out of question… Bear yeah, absolutely not… Sloth… Nick played with the thought that a sloth just beat him in speeding but he just chuckled and shook the thought out of his mind. Flash was intentionally going on wider roads to have space for slower reaction times. There was no way any sloth could drift around like that on tight roads, even while thinking ahead. Maybe a cheetah? Nah they already require class 3 cars too.  


As he kept on thinking he finally saw Jack. His way had lead straight to an ice cream stand, where a vixen served him. The same vixen he saw yesterday on flock street.  


"Wait a minute… there is no way." Nick said while he kept on staring at them. Jack pulled up a 5 dollar bill, said something, and gave it to the vixen with a white thing hidden behind it. "The envelope!" Nick realised and hit his forehead. So the 'guy' he was looking for was not a guy at all.  


They talked for a bit, and after receiving his change for the 5 dollar bill, Jack finally nodded, and stepped away from the icecream stand.  


Nick could swear he saw Jack looking towards him, and stopping for a bit, but right after that, the rabbit kept on going with his day, so he probably didn't recognise him. Or if he did, Nick will have a bit of explaining to do.  
He looked back at the owner of the stand, smiling at her next costumers. When the 4 member family finally left with their cold snack, Nick got moving.  


"Good morning. What can I give you?" She asked from Nick with her signature patient smile, while managing the money.  


"I… Look I gotta ask… Were you the one in the Rx8?" To this question the vixen just blinked patiently and still smiling she answered.  


"I don't know what you talk about sir. So what can I give you? I'm sorry to inform you that the pistachio had unfortunately melted, so we're out of that right now. May I recommend the caramel, perhaps?"  


"Don't play stupid. I saw that envelope you've got."  


The corner of the vixen's mouth started twitching. Her patience was quickly leaving her and the previous natural smile got replaced by an obviously forced one. However she still managed to keep her peace, so Nick kept on pushing.  


"Or what was that white thing behind the money, huh? I doubt it was a postcard."  


"Look sir." She started pushing the stand to another spot. "I don't know what you are talking about, so I’m kindly asking you to leave me alone, or I'll call the police."  


"You won't call them."  


"Try me." The bitter answer was heard.  


"You won't call them because you would need to explain why you keep selling ice cream with an expired license. Rookie mistake. You need to renew it every year, but I suppose they declined your request, because you weren't stubborn enough. On top of that, you have the 400 dollars there, inside the envelope that you can't really explain."  


"Shut up." She gritted her teeth. That smile was nowhere to be seen, it was rather an angry death glare. "You don't have to shout it out to everyone okay? Yes it was me in the car, so what? I won fair and square. I gave all of you a pretty huge head start. Or just surprised I'm a girl? Having nothing between my legs forbids me to race?"  


"Wh- No! Nothing like that! Calm down. I'm more curious why you are stuck on 100 entry fee races. You clearly have the skill to go up on the ranks."  


"Yeah sure…" She snorted. "This whole 'building reputation' and 'gaining respect' is just guys measuring their tail together. Look… participating in high stakes races also means more recognition. More recognition means the cops on you and that's not the best thing I guess you can understand it. This whole racing fever will end one day. Let’s say you got yourself more into this. You are there with millions of dollars and the whole police force on your tail, searching for you with all means possible. Was it worth it? Believe it or not, getting in jail isn’t my goal. Ice cream selling isn't my dream job, and it’s not the best income source either, but if you add that 300 plus every night, with no cop record… You can get something started after a while." She cleared her throat and picked up her original warm smile “So can I give you something sir? Or in case you are not interested, please leave.”  


Nick sighed and looked at the selection. “Alright give me a Vanillia-Caramel combo.”  


“Coming right up.” She nodded  


"Can I give you an offer?"  


"You can…" She muttered while preparing the cream scoop, and cleaning it in hot water "But my answer will be no."  


"You haven't even heard what I wanted."  


"I don't have to. Everyone gives the same offer." She gave the cone to Nick. "That will be 1.50."  


Fishing out the coins from his wallet Nick asked. "What do they usually offer?"  


"Well you know… 'Join my crew, you are good.' But no… I won't join anyone. I'm a lone wolf. Or fox, for that matter."  


"I don't want you to 'join my crew' since I don't have one. I just need a bit of… help."  


"Help, you say… What kind of help?" She asked  


"Well, just show me a few tricks I could use on the track and I would be already happy."  


"I remember you…“ She said, crossing her arms “You were the one who was afraid of his own car. My answer is still no. You are a lost cause. Not only you are afraid to shift up to 6th gear, but your shift timing is all over the place. My answer is a clear no."  


"I need a good teacher. I'm a fast learner. I can remember quite a lot of things, I just need someone to give me advices." It was true. He thought he will have a lot of problem at the police academy, mainly with learning the law parts. However, it went surprisingly easily. Judy was even a bit jealous because Nick's score was 2 points higher than her's. He didn't miss one chance to bring this up at least once a month. "I'm not expecting your help for free of course, I would give you a fair percentage of my earnings of the races."  


"You can't tell anything I'd accept."  


"60%," Nick said, that made the vixen widen her eyes.  


"60%!?" She lowered her voice. "Are you serious? No wait I have a better question. Are you stupid? You do know that it would leave you with 5% gain after each race, right? AND you HAVE TO win for that."  


"Well you are here for the money, I'm here for the fame. Both of us can come out as winners here. Everybody gets what they want, win-win!  


While the vixen still looked up and down on Nick with suspicion in her eyes, Nick kept talking.  


"Look miss, I don't care about money. As I said I just want to get better and you can help me with that. Let's look at the worst case scenario here. I don't win anything despite your best efforts and I give up on racing. You still lost nothing. You have nothing to lose with this deal. But what is the best case you ask? I win, go up on ranks and you get my 60% without having to interact with the cops, or the racers. You can lay low in the shadows while still getting your daily 300 OR even more. Depends on the race. Sounds great?"  


She was hesitating. That's a great sign. Her immediate no turned into a considered yes.  


"So all I have to do is show you a few tricks and tell a few tips?" She was still probably setting up the pros and cons about this choice in her mind  


“Yep that would be about it. And if you’d like to, our only interaction each day can be me giving your fair share. Well aside from the learning part of course. But after that…”  


She was about to say her answer when a goat stepped behind Nick.  


“Excuse me, are you in line?” The mammal behind asked with her trembling voice.  


“Ah no. I’ve already got what I wanted.” He showed the cone he was grabbing, and stepped out of the way. “Sorry, ma’am, go ahead!”  


“What a nice gentlemammal. Good morning sweetheart, I’d like 1 bitter egg and coffee please.”  


“Umm yes.. yes.” The vixen had to gather her toughts and immediately grabbed a cone, placing the wanted flavours with record speed. Nick smiled behind his sunglasses while eating his own icecream. He just got himself a chance in competing with the target crews. He still needed a plan to lure them into one place, but one thing after another. For that he will have plenty of time.  


After the lady left, the vixen lovered her voice. “Okay I’ll give you a chance. But I swear if you screw me over…”  
“I have no intention of crossing anyone.” Nick said the half truth. He did want to cross the crews, but not his helper. He couldn’t keep the money he would get with winning races anyway. He would need to give it in as evidence as soon as he gets it.  


\----  


Judy entered the ZPD with the intention of asking Bogo to assign her to the night shift. She had gone through the discussion inside her head about a million times, she even kept on revising this while walking to work.  


Arriving to the bullpen however, made her forget everything. The usual chatter was nowhere to be heard, it was almost dead silent there. Every now and then a muttered conversation was heard but nothing more. It was a tense atmosphere and Judy had no idea why. When the sleep deprived buffalo entered the room everyone just got more nervous. Something definitely happened in the past 2 days.  


Bogo sighed and without further ado he placed his glasses on and started handing out the assingments. Everyone left immediately as they got their case, almost like they were frightened that Bogo would suddenly snap on them, and bite their head off.  


"Officer Hopps." He finally said, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, seemingly gathering his thouths. "I have a special assingment to you. It's not a greatful job, that one is obvious, but must be dealt with."  


"Oh! Sir, I'd like you to…"  


"It's an important matter. I suppose you'd like to be assigned to the night shift. Makes sense. Anything to help out your partner huh? I wanted to assign you there too, until Wilde told me some rather… Interesting things."  


"Is it about the police radio?" Judy guessed.  


"Yes Hopps, it is about the police radio. Yesterday I requested checkup on our equipments and my fears turned out to be true. One was missing from the backup radios. Someone has to dig into that, because we can't have a traitor working against us. Not here. Not now."  


"So I need to find the officer, who gave away one of our radios."  


"That's what I said. I know, it's not exactly a dream job but it has to be done. I hope you understand."  


"Of course."  


"Now…" He sighed and laid back in his chair "Look I trust you with this. To tell you the truth I was a bit hesistant to assign it to you, knowing the facts."  


"The facts?" Judy repeated "And those are...?"  


"The species of our suspect. I can't be sure if you just gave a family member a favor."  


"Sir I would never…" Judy started with a bit of panic but got silenced by Bogo's held up hooves  


"I know. Just like I thought about everyone else here, but someone HAD to lend it to our guy, or something had to happen. However, as I said… I trust you with this. Report back to me as soon as you have any clue about the identity of the… the suspected officer, even if I'm not on duty."  


"Understood."  


"Good. Dismissed." With that he stood up and left. He seemingly had a long night and wanted to leave as soon as possible just to have some rest.  


"Ooookay…" Judy muttered, sitting alone in the bullpen while thinking how to start with the investigation. "I need the list of the possible officers and find out the motive. That could help a lot…" She hopped off her chair and left the room, to catch a cheetah, who was most likely about to end his shift. After spotting Clawhauser, she fastened her steps. "Claw! Wait!"  


"Hmm?" The tired receptionist looked at her.  


"Can you do me a favor? I need the list of the officers who had access to the evidence room."  
Giving a painful groan, he asked back "Can you wait for Bob? He'll be here in a few minutes."  


"Noo. Bob always takes ages to give me what I need. Please? Just 5 minutes of your time. Pretty please?"  
The cheetah blankly looked at Judy, and seemingly wanted to just say no and run to his bed to get ready for the next night's rush but the rabbit's googly eyes always worked. "Arh… fine. Come on, follow me."  


"Yes! Thank you! You're the best! I owe you one. I'll wait with a cup of coffee and doughnuts when you come back!"  


"Yeah yeah. Let's just get over it." He waved and sat behind his desk again. Making a few clicks he was already on the access history page of the evidence room. "What time?"  


"Hmm from 4 months ago until 1 week ago."  


"Okay… do you want it printed, or sent to your ZPA?"  


"If you send it, that's alright." She said. Printing it was easy but a bit more time consuming, and she didn't want to hold Clawhouser up more than necessary.  


"Aaand done! Hope you will get what you need." He stood up, and yawned "Anything else you want to be sent to your PA?"  


"No, but…" the doe hesitated. There was one thing she wanted to ask, and there was no polite way to do it. "Look, I'm not accusing you with anything. But I have to ask, you gotta understand that…"  
Clawhauser sighed. "You'd like to know if I was the one doing a giveaway with the radio huh?"  


"Oh, so you know about it."  


"Everybody here does. The chief made sure of it. He was furious yesterday, and you know what happens when the chief rages."  


"So that's why the tense atmosphere!"  


"Yeah. So question about radio huh?"  


"Well yeah… I-I mean if it WAS actually you, I understand it. I bet you had a good reason to do so, and I don't necessarily have to tell it to Bogo. I could…"  


"There is no need to play the good cop-bad cop game here." The cheetah stopped Judy without any emotion. "You are never the best with the bad cop part, and Nick is too suspended to take over. Look, if it was me I would feel horrible."  


"Okay, okay. Sorry for bothering you."  
He just waved and finally left the ZPD. Judy wasting no time, sat next to her computer and booted it up.  


"Okay… let's see what we got here." She muttered and opened the file, she received a few minutes ago. It had every detail she needed the exact times of someone signing in with their pass card, and the reasons.  


It was a big file to dig through. At first she strictly looked for NRS entries (No Reason Specified). Those were the most suspicious, but there were also only a few of them, so she had to look for other occasions too. 

**2020.02.13 10:50 AM** Benjamin Clawhauser  
Case number _113GL04_ (Status: Closed)  


**2020.02.13 11:34 AM** Nicholas Piberius Wilde  
Case number. _116GH06_ (Status: Closed)  


**2020.02.14 12:02 PM** Robert Ferdinand Rhinowitz  
Case number _124GG00_ (Status: Closed)

And such enrties were seen. Somewhere the case status was still open at the more fresh cases, but other than that it was that boring. 5 pages of dates and case numbers. Sometimes Judy opened different entries to see a more detailed version of each case, and reasons, with the exact time spent in the room, but it didn't lead to anything. No suspiciously long stay-ins.  


"One of these is not like the others…" Judy muttered, and looking at the clock she let out a small sigh. She already spent 2 hours staring at the entries, it was time to actually take action. As she had no idea how to start, she decided to go with the NRS-es. She had 3 candidates for those. If they can explain themselves, back to the drawing board.  


Knowing that 2 of those candidates were still inside the ZPD, she searched at the desks first. However, this assumption turned out to be false. Only a few officers were seen probably finishing reports, but the mammal she was looking for wasn't there, only his partner.  


"Hey Delgato! Do you know where wolfard is? It's important."  


The lion, without looking up from his work answered. "Interrogation room 4. Currently listening through a senile old lady, who is 100% sure her neighbor is a street racer."  


"You do know that she could sue you for calling her 'senile' right?"  


The lion just shrugged. "I hope you won't tell on me then." He clicked enter, sending his report, and laid back while stretching his arms. "Why do you need Bigby?"  


"Just an NRS at the evidence room's report, nothing serious. Judy told the half truth. She deliberatly left out the part where she accused Delgato's partner with treason.  


"My god that idiot." He chuckled and shook his head with his arms crossed. "Always in a rush, and forgets to do the most basic tasks. If you need the case number I can help too. I know how big pain on the tail it could be to search it back."  


"So you think it was just an administration mistake?"  


"What else could it be? 60% of the times I have to correct his entry. At the other 40% I need to do it entirely. I told him a LOT of times to learn how to make the entry and it's important for administrative reasons yet he still forgets everything. Typical Wolfard. So when was this NRS?"  


"3 months ago. 13th of March 8:04 PM"  


"Mhmmm we had a murder case back than. I guess he was going in to see one of the evidences, because 1 day later the suspect was already in custodity. Erm… Yeah give me a minute, I'll check something.” He typed something on his computer. After a few minutes he nodded. "Yep it must have been that. I remember him calling me after our shift has ended, telling me he figured out everything. I bet he left in a rush because he was too excited for putting the pieces together and left without anything. Here. The case number." Delgato turned the screen to Judy, that had every detail.  


"Ookay. Thanks." Judy politely smiled and scribbled down the numbers. She wanted to talk with Wolfard too, but she decided to do it after he recorded the lady’s complaint. Judy still had no idea why that lady came in personally and didn’t just made a 911 call, but as Delgato said, she might be senile, and just connected the news she heard in the TV with her neighbour returning late night.  


She saw the second NRS owner too. The Tiger was standing next to the coffee machine.  


“Hey Fang, I just wanted to know...” But she couldn’t finish as the mad colleague snapped on her.  


“Searching for the missing radio, I’ve heard. Who did you have to convince to get this assinment? Bogo himself, I suppose.”  


The attitude of the Tiger caught Judy off guard and couldn’t finnish her sentence. She was rather standing there with a surprised expression.  


“Don’t tell me I’m on your suspect list too, that would be the joke of the year.”  


“Look, I’m just trying to cross out names alright? You’ve had an NRS on March 29th. Can you tell me what was that?”  


“Hmph of course. Because that radio can disappear only with NRS-es huh? Where is your partner right now? Going out a lot recently?”  


“You are overdefending yourself, and diverting the conversation. Do you know what that means in most cases?”  


“Oh you, you ARE accusing me. That’s good. Really good. Look, compared to ME you are still a rookie. 16 Years on the force and yesterday Bogo comes to me making the same accusation as you do NOW. I never betrayed anyone, yet somehow he gave the case to YOU. Why? Isn't THAT suspicious? You are covering your partner for some reason, and I'll figure out why!”  


Crossing her arms Judy started to get a bit irritated. “So you think I begged to get this case? It isn’t a dream one to be honest. I will be the most hated one because I will need to figure things out, and yeah occasionaly I will accuse someone with 16 years behind their back, because you don't know who it might be. So either TELL me what that NRS was I'll get you suspended for holding up the investigation!”  


“Did you look at the entry 2 minutes later?”  


Judy looked at the pile of papers and did see something. The same name, now with details and a reference to a falied entry attempt. The answer was there all along.  


“I literally just went back to get everything, and meanwhile my entry expired. Hope I helped in the investigation OFFICER!” He did a fake bow and already left, leaving the surprised rabbit behind. Fangmeyer normally was always smiling, joking around. He and Nick always had something to joke about, so this interaction was really out of character from him, thus he got pushed to the top of Judy's suspect list.  


Not only he got overprotective when the radio was mentioned, but his explanation seemed a bit off too. In normal cases that would already be suspicious. But of course it's possible that the fact that he got accused by Bogo, already set his mood and Judy appearing, investigating the case didn't help either. She looked at the papers and sighed.  


"Everybody will hate me by the end of this day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this fanfic really that bad? It's still in the dumpster of all stories in this particular fandom. I'm trying to slowly make it better, but rereading prevoius chapters still make me cringe how poorly written this whole thing is. 
> 
> I should really just stop trying. Been writing fanfictions since 2016 and even though I improved a lot since, I just stopped at a certain level and I can't get better anymore.
> 
> Yeah. I'll publish the remaining written chapters and we will see. Still, thank you to whoever keeps reading this thing.


	7. Give it all

While Judy was struggling with her new case, Nick’s afternoon couldn't have gone better. He didn’t have to do anything during the day, so he just ordered food and laid back while watching tv.  


His next race won't even be 'his'. At least he won't be the one driving. He will see a ‘serious’ race from the 1st row, next to that Vixen, who told him, he should see how things are going on higher stakes before anything. Nick was waiting for her call since she had to fix a few things with Jack.  


After finishing a movie, he finally got a phone call. It wasn't anything long, only the vixen telling him the place and time plus warning Nick to not be late. Without being able to answer anything, the call already ended.  


Half an hour before the 'Discussed' time Nick had left his house again, but now he didn't head towards his garage, instead went straight to the discussed place. He won't need his car this time afterall and he didn’t want to park it in the open. As soon as he arrived, he received a not so warm welcome.  


"What are you doing here?" Jack's strict voice was heard. "We literally have a few rules yet you managed to already break one of them. Congrats!"  


"What do you mean?"  


"I mean your little visit today morning. You didn't win and I thought I was straight enough. I don't want to see you until the evening in case you lose."  


"OH! About that. Yeah sorry won't happen again." Nick patted Jack’s shoulder and tried to avoid the rabbit. Unfortunately, he was just as annoying as Judy and stepped in his way again  


"It's still not your race. Leave before I do something with your pretty face, that I probably won’t regret.”  


“Look, Stripes. I don't intend to join, I'll be only an observer."  


"Really? Who will you 'observe'? Last warning before I…”  


"He is with me." A third voice joined. Jack turned his head, to see the Rx8 with a rolled down window, and the vixen looking out of there.  


"Wh- are you two together?" Jack asked in disbelief.  


"As business partners… Yes." She answered, and looked at Nick."Come on, get in. We need to set a few rules." She rolled the window back up.  


Nick shrugged at the still mad rabbit and opened the passenger side door of the car. Before he could say anything the vixen started speaking.  


"Rule number 1. No talking while I'm driving. If you kick me out of my rythm I'll strangle you."  


"Hmm nice… One question, ma'am, how am I supposed to learn anything if I can't even ask?"  


"You can ask after the race. I have a lot of money on the line right now, because I wasn’t allowed to give it all in on a 100 race. Jack and his rules… He is all about ‘fair play’ and wanted me to race against others on ‘my level’. He is just a born Justice warrior, isn’t he? So just let me concentrate. I’ll try to show you how things are going on a REAL race. Rule number 2. I'm not your friend, not your buddy, not anyone. Keep personal questions to yourself, because you can be sure I won't answer them."  


As Jack already got ready to start the race, the vixen had to quickly wrap up the rule telling.  


"Rule number 3… My ride… my music. If you have any problem with that feel free to get out." She already pushed the play button, and the guitar started playing from the speakers.  


"Ah! Rock, huh?" Nick asked. He had a lot of time to get used to this style of music next to Finnick.  


"Something like that." She answered a bit absent mindedly, and was already focusing on Jack's countdown. For some reason she was 'playing' with the engine, that made Nick a bit confused.  


"Why are you…"  


"Rule number 1." She gritted her teeth, and kept on doing this weird engine revving maneuver, meanwhile he heard the barely understandable first lines of the song. 

_Aiyyo, first things first  
It's time to shake ground in the eighth round  
Box battle and break down  
For the beak in the rhyme tone  
Jump in the cyclone  
S-T-Y-L-E-S yes, I know._

The car almost jumped as the race started. It made Nick grab the roof handle, with bulging eyes. His start wasn't anything like this, it was more quicker. Maybe it was the reason they came out first. However this lead didn't last long. She got left behind after the first corner. Giving a frustrated growl, the driver tried her best with the correct shifting, and keeping up with the car ahead but she had a lot of things to watch out for, mainly others behind, who tried to take her place.  


A car behind tried to take on the opportunity, but the vixen was quick. She closed the window on the other racer, making them lose speed, so she got a bit of a breathing room.  


She did a good job in keeping up with the car ahead. On long straights she was slowly falling behind, but after each corner she managed to get closer. Her cornering technique was completely different from Nick's. She always leaned to the outer lane before a corner, and only went inside during the turn, using the whole road.

_Movin' it's on now  
Makin' it punk rile  
Shakin' the funk rile  
Fakin' the punk style  
Fakin' the funk pal  
Dunk watch the punk  
What now? Watch your battleship get sunk down_

“Arh great!” She muttered as a siren rang up behind her. Seems like this race wasn’t Jack’s ‘No cop’ special, only a regular race. The 1 chasing car turned into 2, and soon quite a few units were on the chase. That meant one thing. They spotted one of the most wanted racers. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been this big of a deal. They will definitely get a few rhino units too in their faces, too.  


The idea of the rhino units was this. You are not stopping? We'll make you stop by ramming you frontally with SUV's. It was a quite dangerous move, but keeping up with the racers was more important. Bogo had to make a lot of promises to use the ramming units wisely and only in crutial situations. Eventually he got the permission.  


As they were going on the oncoming lane, and uphill, Nick couldn’t help but give voice to his concern.  


“You are going on the oncoming, without seeing if anything is there, you should slow down a bit...”  


“Shut up.”  


“Come on, you will collide with someone.”  


“What part of the shut up did you not understand?”  


“And what part of the danger did you not understand?”  


She gave a sigh, and shifted up. “That’s why I never race with passengers. Did you know that a study showed that foxes are in the top 10 for reaction times amongst mammals? And I know you are a chicken, but I hope you see that I'm a fox.” To emphasise this statement she shifted up again.  


"And you broke rule number 1 again. Do it one more time and I'll raise my cut to 65%”

_Click (Click) Pow (Pow) knocked (Knocked) Down (Down)  
What? Just what I've thought so what's up now?  
(Huh) I'm like huh_

Finally they reached a top, and saw a crossroad. The car in first barely passed the yellow light, but they will definitely run into the red.  


“Well, guess what. You are about to see that reaction time.” The vixen said, showing no intention of stopping. Meanwhile Nick grabbed his seats even more, like that could save him from an upcoming collision. That’s it. I’m dead. His brain kept on telling him. I’m dead and It’s only my fault. Well, next time don’t sit next to a lunatic, or agree to a stupidly dangerous job. Next time only desk duty. The safe and lovely desk duty…  


However, the vixen maneuvered through the traffic, like it was a walk in the park. At first she kept her car in the middle of the road. As soon as she got closer and saw a bit of space, she chose the lane that was the best for crossing the road. He went through the first part with no problem. After this she had to push the brakes for a bit, but not for stopping, no-no. She did it only to get the car to slide a bit, pushed the gas again and avoiding the collision with a civilian, she already got out of the situation with no problem whatsoever.  


With his eyes still stuck open, all Nick was able to say was. “Wow.” He looked behind themselves to see how the other racers would deal with this situation but to his disappointment they got lucky. For them the siren of the police officers helped a lot, as everyone stopped to let through the cops and as a result everyone had a clear road ahead. It's a bit unfair, but what can you do? Life is unfair sometimes.  


So despite her attempt, she was still losing and the others managed to close up too. Not the best situation to be in  


“Okay, the road is clear.” The vixen said to herself after taking a better look ahead. “Hold tight, you’ll feel a bit of a push.”  


“What pu...” But Nick couldn’t finfish his question, the feeling immediately answered it. The already fast car, got some power from somewhere and switched to 'light speed'. At least that's what Nick felt for 10 seconds. After that it 'slowed' down again to 180. "Wh… What the heck was that?"  


"Little bit of boost to the engine… Nitrous oxide."  


"Ah so the thing that blows up cars."  


"No, the thing that will help us win this race. And it only blows up the engine if installed incorrectly, which I made sure to avoid."  


"Wait… YOU installed it?"  


"Would that calm you down if I said I didn't?"  


“Well not anymore obviously...”  
Nick looked behind themselves. The nitro did it’s job. They were ahead again by a quarter mile from the 3rd place, but still not in the lead. It was still on their ‘to do’ list. However, they were finally in position to attack. It wasn’t as easy job, as it looked like. The car in front was definitely faster, so passing on a long straight was out of the question, only the corners were possible passing points, and she couldn’t stay behind for too long. As soon as a turn was coming that could open a window for them, they were already too far behind to overtake, but not too far to get back behind the leader.  


“Alright one more dangerous move.” The vixen informed Nick, which made him a bit nervous again. What else was gonna come? Will she open a wing on the side of the car and fly over or maybe shoot down the car ahead with a built-in machine gun? To his surprise none of those things happened, they just simply passed the car ahead with no problem. Nick was a bit confused how, but realising the reason his death thoughts returned. There was a hairpin left turn ahead of them, and their speed was definitely too high to stop now.  


Before he could say anything, the vixen was already on the move again. She leaned to the right side, quick left, right again, and reached for the pawbreak. The back of the car started sliding. Tires were screeching, engine was roaring, and car was turning. She definitely didn’t slow down too much to stop, but it was perfect to make the turn.  


The side of the car barely missed the walls of a building, but she did it. She was finally in the lead again, with the other, quite a few feet behind. As long as she didn't make any fatal mistake this race was already in the bag. 

_(Click (Click) Pow (Pow) knocked (knocked) down (down)  
What? Just what I’ve thought so what’s up now?)_

With the adrenalin still pumping in his vein, Nick took a deep breath. “You’re insane.” He said, and received a laugh from his instructor.  


“Sure I am! What’s your point?” Her smile however quickly faded after she heard a loud popping sound after a gear shift, followed by ratling. “No! Not now!” She panicked and tried her best, salvaging the situation, but it was stuck in 3rd gear. After the first car passed her, she had to admit it was all lost. She couldn't get into higher gear, and the car was constantly complaining about everything. Nick didn't need to be a mechanic to know, there was no way she could win like this. 

“Transmission problem… Can’t finish the race.” She sighed and turned off from their racetrack, hoping nobody will follow them. Fortinately every cop car kept on chasing the racing ones, and left them alone. Pulling up to a garage, she rolled in, and stopped the engine. “I’ll have a lot of work tomorrow.” She muttered and hit her head against the steering wheel, with her eyes closed. “5000 dollars flushed down the toilet, and god knows how much it will cost to find parts. The world just hates me… Nothing new...”  


Nick, not really knowing how to react, just sat there dumbly. After gathering his thougts he finally opened his mouth “Well, I guess I’m not needed here anymore so I’m just… gonna...” He pointed outside, and nodded. “Yeah… Goodnight.”  


As he opened the door, the vixen finally turned towards him. “Did you decide to quit? Was it a bit too extreme?”  


“No… I just thought you… you know… your car isn’t in the shape for you to keep ‘Teaching’ so...”  


“You’ll use your own car, we don’t need mine, for me to lend a few tips. Just lead me to your garage, I know a place you can practise without anyone bothering you.” Noticing Nick’s hesitation she added. “Or… You don’t have to. I can also wait here...” She leaned to the wall. "Just come back for me."  


“No, sorry I didn’t… No! I just… Nothing. Sorry, follow me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you might ask how many Need For Speed references I want to put in the story. The answer is... **Yes**
> 
> Also in case you are wondering what’s the song: https://youtu.be/7NFebA3sTcg
> 
> It’s so funny to see the real version rock songs. With racing games the publisher usually tried to make it to be suitable with most ages and the songs were quite often... well... they were explicit, so they used a censored version in-game. So when I looked it up, I was like. ‘Wait that’s not the real lyrics’. So yeah. Nostalgia 
> 
> I’m sorry to inform everyone, but we’ve reached the last of my prewritten chapters. I don’t want to announce another ‘hiatus’ but I will definitely update less frequently. Take care everyone.


	8. Training grounds

By the end of the day, this whole case officially became Judy's most hated one. While most of her colleagues took it lightly, even joking about the situation, (Which Judy was really grateful for) quite a few officers were becoming really upset for getting accusations. The rabbit tried to be as subtle as possible, but after a while, everyone knew her intentions.  


Right now she was staring at her notes, not really connecting anything. When she had to start over a page for the 10th time she sighed and tossed this little notebook onto the table.  
Her shift has already ended about half an hour ago but she felt like she made no progress whatsoever and she hated one thing more than making no progress. Making no progress, and ending her shift. She usually felt useless that way, no matter how many times Nick told her to ease up a little bit, and tomorrow will be another day.  


She rubbed her eyes and finally got off the chair. There was one more thing she wanted to do before leaving the building since there was one more NRS, that belonged to their beloved receptionist, AKA Clawhauser. She picked up the promised doughnuts and headed to the desk.  


"Here's what I promised." She placed the box on the table.  


"Judy, Oh my god, I love you, you are the best!" The cheetah gave a grateful sigh, and opened the box, immediately taking a bite from one of the round sweets  


"You're welcome." The rabbit chuckled. "Hey umm… I thought I should ask…"  


"Dispatch! We have our first hotshots in sight! I'm Code 3." Can be heard from the radio.  


"Mmh." Clawhauser quickly swallowed the bite he was chewing on and pushed the button. "2-33, keep us updated. Units streetwise, we have multiple racing parties going at high speed, stand by for further description." He released the button and made another big bite "Hmm phorry did you fay fometfin?"  


"Yeah, I uh…" She felt guilty for even bringing this up. Clawhauser wouldn't do anything like that. But she had to ask. It will be just a stupid explanation again. I hate this. She thought and took a huge breath. "You had an NRS on May 17th. Can you tell me why?"  


"Dispatch! 2-12 here, assisting ongoing code 3, leaving my position."  


"Understood." the Cheetah pushed the button again. "2-34, and 2-36, you are close to the ongoing chase and can get ahead of the racing parties, try the boxing maneuver on one of the suspects. Spike traps are yet to be authorized, stand by for further instructions, and keep us updated." He turned to Judy again. "Sorry, what was that again?"  


"An NRS. You… You've had one on May 17th?"  


"What? No, I didn't!" Clawhauser furrowed  


"Yes, you did look!" Judy pointed at the name 'Benjamin Clawhauser, that had NRS written below with big red letters.  


"I never… I… didn't…" He slowly took the paper and stared at his name like it was just some hallucination  


"Dispatch, 2-12 here, racers are separated. Waiting for instructions."  
The Cheetah was still staring at the Red letters. Almost like they had a hypnotizing power over him. He seemingly didn't hear anything.  


"Uhh, Dispatch? Do you copy?"  


"Y-Yes 5 by 5. Sorry, can you repeat that?" Clawhauser finally managed to look away from the red letters.  


"Racers are on the move. They have parted apart and not stopping."  


"Uh ah… Go for… go for the one you are the closest to." He finished and looked at the paper again.  


"Ookay…" The unsure answer came from the comms. "Suspect is in a Black Mercedes, not a first-timer."  


Clawhauser quickly turned to his computer and started typing with record speed to check something. And when he saw what he didn't want to, his eyes widened even more. "There is no way…" He started but couldn't finish his sentence. He constantly opened and closed his mouth.  


"Are you sure it wasn't you?"  


"Yes! I… I'm taking care of my entries since Bogo made me do the yearly checkups. I… It wasn't me."  


"Then who was it?" Judy asked curiously. "Who could get your card this easily?"  


"Anyone! One second I don't look… I…"  


"Hey, calm down! We have security footage too, right? I bet I can catch that thief."  


"We wipe the footage every 2 months." He waved and sighed. "I'm in big trouble, aren't I?"  


\---  


The old, abandoned construction site on the outskirts of Savanna Central usually stayed abandoned. It used to be a government-funded project and was planned to be a huge office complex. However as problems came up with other projects, the government decided to cut funds from the office's construction. When things stabilized, other problems came up. First, the company that had been originally assigned to do this had gone bankrupt and the second one turned out to be a fraud that stole millions of dollars from other projects.  


They were already years behind schedule and the missing money didn't help either. So the project got placed on a waiting list and had been there for 20 years, giving a place for vandalism. It slowly got to the point where it would cost less to start from scratch, than fixing the vandalized parts.  


While it was a horrible sight to look at, it was a perfect place for practicing if you’d like to be unseen. While a Mustang was speeding through a DIY racetrack, made out of cones, and whatever building material they found, a vixen was sitting on a concrete block and was waiting with a stopwatch in her paws. When the car passed the line, the vixen clicked the watch and looked at the results. However, she wasn’t pleased with it.  


“Was this better?” Nick asked after getting out of his car but to his disappointment, he just received a head shake. “Oh come on, I copied exactly what you’ve shown me!”  


“No.” She sighed. “You TRIED to copy my driving style with more or less success.” She stood up and started pointing around. “1st corner… You lost too much speed, everyone with a slight knowledge would have passed you. Seconds of lost time. There! 

Another second, that you’ve never got back. I won’t even comment on your hairpin turn. You were unsure of how to even approach it. Again! Impress me!”  


Nick rolled his eyes and sat back into the car. He was so sure he made a good time on his previous lap. “Last time I tried impressing vixens was 10 years ago and for completely different reasons.” He muttered and started up the engine again. He pressed the clutch and pushed the gas pedal while trying to maintain the RPM around 4000. When he got the starting signal, he released the clutch and growled frustratedly as the wheels spun out before getting a better grip. He could already hear the unimpressed summarisation of his start ‘You lost a VALUABLE tenth of a second by spinning out your tires! If you’ll do this every time, don’t be surprised after getting 4th on big races!'  


He tried to take the first corner as quickly as possible, but he had to push the brakes to keep himself from spinning out. He shook his head and picked up the speed again. He was making mistakes on top of mistakes again. Maybe it was because he had been there practicing for about 3 hours now.  


He did take a few corners perfectly, but those won’t make up for the ‘Time lost’ at the start. As he kept on thinking about his horrible first part, he became more and more reckless, to be at least somewhat productive, and to his surprise, it worked out just well. He took corners after corners with remarkable speed and had good line keeping, just until he reached their last ‘turning back’ hairpin turn.  


He was so sure he had it, but his speed turned out to be too much for that. He tried taking it on the ‘ideal line’ as it was referred to, but his momentum just took him further, hitting the cone out of its original place, and he stopped meters away from their planned racetrack.  


Nick gave an angry shout and hit the steering wheel, while the dust settled behind him. He got carried away again and it resulted in a nice little spinning out. If it was a real race he would have probably wrecked his car, and his bones too.  


He was just sitting there for a few minutes. He wasn’t really in the mood for getting another negative comment on his horrible driving. Maybe this is just too hard for him, and maybe he should just go back to chasing the racers, instead of trying to be one.  


“Well, that was something...” Nick heard the door opening and saw the vixen sitting next to him “You had a nice split time in the middle section, I’ll give you that but… well threw it all out through the window with this last move on the hairpin left. Great driving overall.”  


“‘Great driving?’ Are you serious?” Nick asked in disbelief. “You have been literally giving me the ‘get better’ speech for the past 4 hours and you say ‘great driving’ when I theoretically wreck the car? I don’t know about you, but in my book, that’s a fail just like the previous 100 tries.”  


“Let’s just rest it for tonight, shall we?” she sighed ”And… I might have been going too hard on you.”  


“Well, can’t blame you,” Nick said. “I would do the same if it was my future money on the line.”  


“Look, you definitely have the basics, and with a bit more practice, you will become better too, that’s it. Racing is art and has its beauty. With a bit more practice, you will be able to do beautiful things too. In 2 or 3 months you will be the next Allen Saw.”  


“Yeah would be nice…" Nick said absent-mindedly while looking at the squashed cone, he drew over "Can I ask something? Well… It kinda gets in the 'Rule 2' category, but I'm curious."  


"Breaking another rule huh? What? Next time you will comment on my music taste too"  


"Now, that's a rule I know not to mess with." He chuckled.  


"You can have 1 question, on 1 condition. I get to ask something too."  


"We have a deal, miss!"  


"So? What is that rule-breaking question you have?"  


Gathering his thoughts, Nick sat there for a few seconds "Is there a particular reason you are into racing this much?"  


"Really? Did you waste your question on that?" She grinned. "Yes, there is a reason. What an easy answer."  


"Come on you won't get away with this that easily. You know how I meant it."  


“OH! You want the full story! Well, deal is a deal I guess.” She shrugged and thought for a bit of her answer” I can mainly thank my car-loving personality to my father. At least the mechanic part. The love for racing came right after this. I started small, with go-karts, and later went for amateur races too, on supervised racetracks. I was fairly good. Wasn’t the best of course, but wasn’t the worst either. Now, doing the same on the streets is an entirely new feeling… No supervised tracks, you are entirely on your own and can trust only your skills. I would love to do this daily, but… you know… it's also illegal. So it would be nice to do it professionally, but also would be nice to not get in jail. That’s it. I hope my answer was fulfilling enough." She finished. "Well, my turn with the question."  


"Let’s hear it then." He knew it wasn’t the full story. Aside from sniffing out a lie from miles, he was also good at detecting half-truths, and it was definitely in that category.  


"So, what is your job? What do you do for a living?"  


Oh boy, what do I answer? Nick thought to himself. He definitely can't say police officer, but the pawpsicle business was way too long ago, and he won't have any proof to his 'lie' Well, in worst case scenario he would just ask Finnick to back him up, and make some pawpsicle ASAP  


Picking up on his hesitation, the Vixen added "I mean, it can't be worse than selling ice cream."  


"Well, it's kinda funny, because… I do sell ice cream."  


"Wait. Really?"  


"Yeah…" He chuckled nervously. "It's called Pawpsicle, 2 dollars each, and tastes delicious.”  


"How come we've never met before?"  


"Well, my target customers are mainly... lemmings and smaller animals. Would sell it in little Rodentia too, if they'd let anyone in. Trust me, I tried WAY too hard getting a pass there, but no. It’s just a taboo for bigger animals. Those little bastards are free to come outside, but nobody is allowed inside."  


“Hold up… So THAT’S why you spotted my expired license right away! I knew it! Nobody is ever looking at it, yet you saw it immediately.”  


“Yep. Most of the mammals wouldn’t even care if your paper was signed with a crayon. But when someone knows what to watch… You can get in a few awkward situations.”  


“You tell me...”  


Glancing at the fuel tank level sensor Nick grimaced. “Do you know how I could refuel without being seen? This car is slurping petrol like an elephant does with water, and all gas station camera recordings get sent straight to the ZPD.” Realizing he shouldn’t know this information he added. “At least I think so, and I wouldn’t like to take chances.” He said, and looked at the vixen in the corner of his eyes, hoping his instructor didn’t pick up on his misstep.  


“Sure! I have a friend I can hook you up with. He is a bit ‘Follow the rules’ type, but he owes me big time. I think I can talk him into helping you, he already helps with my refueling. I’ll navigate you there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOY, it's been almost a month since last time I updated this fanfic. I'd like to apologise for that. I'm doing my best to give out at least somewhat okay work from my hands. I had a lot of problems with the current chapter and I'm still not impressed. Som1 halp PLS.


End file.
